Cape Town – The signals are clear that Public Enterprises Minister Lynne Brown will on Friday inject fresh leadership with no links to state capture at power utility Eskom.
Brown heads to Eskom’s Megawatt Park headquarters in Johannesburg on Friday for its annual general meeting, where she will bring sweeping new changes to the board. A new chairperson and countless new board members are expected to be announced publicly at 12:00.
The reversal of Brian Molefe’s role as chief executive, the resignation of Eskom chairperson Ben Ngubane and the appointment of respected Eskom veteran Johnny Dladla as the new acting group chief executive are clear signals of Brown’s intent.
Gupta-owned The New Age punted for the return of Matshela Koko as chief executive, citing sources saying he was cleared by an investigation by Cliffe Decker Hofmeyr.
However, Brown still needs to see a recommendation by the Eskom board regarding this investigation before making a final decision in the matter. This will likely only occur next week. Koko is still head of generation at Eskom.
It appears Brown is attempting to reclaim political ground by sweeping clean all links to state capture allegations in Eskom.
Connected to state capture allegations are links to the Gupta family, following the former Public Protector’s State of Capture report and the Gupta Leaks emails.
Ngubane, Molefe, Koko and other board members have been implicated one way or another in the report and leaks.
President Jacob Zuma on Thursday announced he would soon initiate a judicial inquiry into the matter.
Regarding Dladla, Business Day reported that “several attempts were made by some senior executives and Eskom board members to introduce Dladla to the Gupta family, but that he declined”.
The new leaders face a gruelling year ahead. Apart from completing Medupi and Kusile and ensuring the country is not plunged into load shedding again, they face the following challenges:
- Molefe has taken Eskom to the Labour Court regarding taken his pension and appointment reversal, while the Economic Freedom Fighters and Democratic Alliance are continuing with their High Court application regarding Molefe's reappointment, which has been postponed pending the Labour Court process. However, that court barred Molefe from returning to work pending the outcome of the hearings.
- Eskom is set to be investigated by the Special Investigating Unit, after Brown instructed the branch to probe all coal contracts and tenders at Eskom. It requires President Jacob Zuma's approval.
- A Parliamentary inquiry into the maladministration, governance problems and procurement issues at Eskom will officially commence in the first week of August 2017, when the legislature resumes its activities for the third quarter.
- The Public Protector will conduct a preliminary investigation to determine the merits of some of the allegations that have been published as part of the #GuptaLeaks saga pointing to issues at Eskom, the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa and Transnet. There is still the recommendation by the former Public Protector that Zuma appoint a judicial inquiry into allegations of state capture regarding Eskom, Molefe and the Guptas.
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