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Johannesburg - Trade Union Solidarity plans to announce the next steps it will take in its strategy to challenge former Eskom CEO Brian Molefe’s pension payout.
Solidarity issued an invitation on Tuesday, indicating that it would announce details of its “litigation strategy” at a press briefing on Thursday.
“Details of the unlawful payment of R30m from Eskom to the Eskom Pension Fund and the unlawful payout of millions of rand to Molefe will also be disclosed at the conference,” the statement read.
Anton van der Bijl, head of Solidarity’s centre for fair labour practices, said that Molefe should be held “criminally liable” for his “selfish” deeds during his time at the power utility.
Molefe’s initial early retirement and the subsequent pension payout was not fair and did not take place within the framework of Eskom’s pension and provident fund, said Van Der Bijl.
Earlier this year, Solidarity filed an affidavit for the courts to overturn Eskom’s decision to reappoint Molefe as CEO, as well as the approval of his pension payout. Political parties, the DA and EFF, had also challenged Eskom’s decisions via a consolidated court application. The case is still to be heard.
The affidavit revealed details of the circumstances surrounding Molefe’s retirement package.
It also shows that a letter was written to Public Enterprise Minister Lynne Brown by former chairperson Ben Ngubane informing her of Molefe’s early retirement agreement.
But in an affidavit filed by Brown last week, she denies that she ever received a letter informing her of Molefe’s pension package.
At the Eskom Inquiry on Tuesday, former board member Venete Klein said that the board was unclear about Molefe’s contract.
Klein was giving evidence before Parliament's Eskom Inquiry into Molefe's controversial pension payout and the nature of his contract.
Eskom Pension and Provident Fund CEO Sibusiso Luthuli has testified that Molefe should never even have been on the retirement fund, because he was on a fixed-term contract.
The payout has been frozen pending a court case regarding the matter.
Molefe is expected to give evidence at the inquiry.
“The Molefe issue is about more than merely an individual that enriched himself; it is also about state capture and the looting of tax money,” said Solidarity’s chief executive Dr Dirk Hermann.
“The court case is on behalf of tax payers who are fed up with tax money being abused. Tax payers must use all criminal and civil instruments available to them to protect tax money,” he said.
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