Johannesburg - Eskom Chairperson Zethemba Khoza said on Friday that the board hopes to announce the outcome of suspended acting CEO Matshela Koko’s disciplinary hearing before the end of December.
“It hasn’t been discussed with the minister (of public enterprises). We just received it (the DC report) this morning. The board is still going to sit, the audit and risk committee and the full board, then once they review it, they’ll inform the minister of their position,” he told the media on the sidelines of a special general meeting in Sunninghill, Johannesburg.
Khoza added that Koko hasn’t yet been informed of the decision.
When called for comment, Koko referred Fin24 to Eskom about the outcome of the disciplinary hearing, saying “it isn’t proper for me to comment until I’ve been informed by the chairperson”.
Khoza said that because it’s December, it’s difficult to gather all the board members for a meeting but they hope to convene one next week and make a public announcement about Koko’s fate before the end of December.
Speculation on Friday morning was rife that Koko would return to his old position as acting CEO, with several publishing houses reporting that Koko was back in the driving seat at Eskom after being found not guilty in his disciplinary hearing.
Minister of Public Enterprises Lynne Brown told the Eskom board that the state-owned company must appoint a new Group CEO as a matter of "priority".
Brown was flanked at the meeting by acting CEO Sean Maritz, who joked with the media when he walked in that he's still CEO "as far as he knows”.
Koko faced six charges‚ including allegedly failing to declare a conflict of interest when Impulse International, a company his stepdaughter, Koketso Choma owned shares and had a directorship in, was awarded a nearly R1bn tender by Eskom while he was head of generation at the power utility.
Koko in his closing submissions to the disciplinary hearing on Monday, said Eskom had failed to bring any material evidence to support the charges.
He said that when he had become aware of a potential conflict of interest‚ he had declared it to former Eskom CEO Brain Molefe and former chairperson Ben Ngubane. He presented a memo and an e-form as evidence of his communication with them.
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