Ngubane: Campaign to kill trust in Eskom

Cape Town – There is a campaign to “kill trust in Eskom”, chairperson Ben Ngubane told Parliament on Wednesday.

Referring to claims of state capture regarding Eskom’s contract with Gupta-owned Tegeta, Ngubane said the only state capture occurred when the National Party came to power in 1948.

He told the Portfolio Committee on Public Enterprise that Eskom is still dealing with prepayment contracts with five coal mining companies the NP government put in place 40 years ago.

“Those shareholders sitting in London have benefited on the sweat of our miners because of state capture,” he said. “Let us be clear what we are talking about.”

He said Eskom does not want to renew these contracts, as that would enable it to draw up new contracts with black industrialists, small businesses and rural businesses to transform the mining industry.

This comes as Eskom handed over a document to Treasury on Tuesday evening, after the ministry said Eskom failed to cooperate with the process of reviewing the power utility’s coal contracts.

“To date, not only has Eskom failed to honour its undertaking to submit comments to Treasury’s report, but it chose to ignore correspondence and put (up) all forms of hindrances,” National Treasury said in a statement on Monday.

The review relates to Eskom’s coal contracts with Gupta-owned Tegeta, a company that has been accused of state capture due to the Guptas’ close links to President Jacob Zuma.

Ngubane said Eskom had given all the information National Treasury wanted. “Then they gave us a 172-page document and stipulated it be approved by the board,” he said. “Our next meeting is on September 21.”

CEO Brian Molefe said Eskom was simply trying to comply with Treasury’s instructions to ensure the report was approved by the board.

With a clear gibe at Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan, who failed to meet the Hawks to receive a warning letter last week, Molefe said: “If Treasury had come to do a warning statement, we would have gone.

'My conscience is clear, I did not lie'

“My conscience is clear that I have not lied,” he said, referring to allegations that he lied to the public. “We had the best interest to comply with Treasury. Our conduct is not the conduct that we were refusing to comply. The reason the documents were outstanding was that we were complying with the board.”

Molefe confirmed that Treasury had signed for the documents and that the Treasury chief financial officer had written to Eskom to ask whether any documents were outstanding.

Ngubane said there was nothing to be devious about and there was nothing to hide. “I have full confidence in the CEO and executive,” he said. “They work by the book. Those decisions are vetted by auditors.”