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PERSONALLY, I’ve admired Brian Molefe.
Who hasn’t?
He is a clever, amiable man who has been in charge of some of the biggest companies in South Africa - where the successes have been evident.
He went from being a senior Treasury official to running the Public Investment Corporation (PIC) before becoming Transnet CEO.
In 2015 he was seconded from Transnet to Eskom at a time when Eskom was in real turmoil.
In my book Blackout: The Eskom Crisis, I pointed out how the company – between 2007 and 2015 – had seven different CEOs, five different chairmen and nine different cabinet ministers in charge of the two portfolios of Energy and Public Enterprises.
That’s 21 different people in charge of the four most important jobs in energy in South Africa.
Madness.
I wrote that one of the vital things that must happen to stop load shedding and fix Eskom, is to have leadership stability at the utility.
Cue Brian Molefe.
And he is an efficient guy.
Since he’s been at Eskom, load shedding has stopped, the company has turned increasingly huge profits and matters electricity wise are seemingly hunky-dory.
Naturally, massive electricity tariff increases, or the fact that the tanking economy has driven electricity demand down at peak times, have helped prop up the power utility.
But I digress.
Molefe is also savvy.
I’ve heard him quote Afrikaans poems and recount tales about the Boer Republics I’d never heard before.
I am sure he has the same tools when the audience is not Afrikaans.
On Wednesday, in the ground shifting public protector report on state capture, Molefe was one of the most often mentioned names.
He was mentioned more often than the Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Des van Rooyen.
And Van Rooyen was the guy who replaced Nhlanhla Nene as finance minister.
For a weekend.
And Molefe is mentioned more than him?
This raised some eyebrows.
Among others, the report quotes Atul Gupta stating that Molefe is his ‘very good friend’ and often visits his home in Saxonwold.
There is of course nothing wrong with being friends with any family, including the Guptas.
The problem here is however called conflict of interest.
And I would argue, when you run the biggest coal user in the country and your friend is an investor in coal mining… the conflict doesn’t get any bigger.
So what do you do when this conflict exists?
Well, the report states what Molefe did.
It notes that he and big induna Ajay Gupta called each other 58 times between August 2015 and March 2016.
It states for the period 5 August to 17 November 2015, Molefe can be physically placed in the Saxonwold area (where the Gupta mansion is located) on 19 occasions.
That’s at least one visit per week.
Regarding these visits to the Saxonwold area, Fin24 quoted Molefe as saying this at an Eskom results press briefing:
"My cellphone reflects I was in the area. There's a shebeen there. Two streets away from the Gupta. I will not admit or deny that I've gone to the shebeen. But there is a shebeen there.”
READ: Tearful Molefe slams public protector’s Saxonwold cellphone evidence
So let’s say it was a coincidence then that Molefe was formally appointed Eskom CEO in September 2015.
In the middle of all those visits to a shebeen.
Five months later a Gupta-linked coal mining company called Tegeta bought an Eskom supplying coal mine.
With the help of a huge loan from Eskom. That was approved in the middle of the night - okay, maybe not the middle of the night.
It is recorded by the state capture report that on 11 April 2016 Eskom held an urgent Board Tender Committee meeting at nine o' clock at night.
The reason? The committee (per the report) had to approve a prepayment to the Gupta-linked Tegeta amounting to R660m.
(amaBhungane has reported before that South Africa’s banks refused to provide the finance.)
This money was then used by Tegeta to help finance the purchase of the coal mine.
The board members on this committee did NOT include Molefe; however, at least two of the four members had links to the Gupta family or Tegeta per the state capture report.
Throw in the report’s other comments about the Eskom board including its alleged contraventions of the Public Finance Management Act and you have to wonder: what is going on at Eskom?
Can the public trust this entity to act in our best interest with the billions it is spending to bolster electricity supply?
Personally, I hope Brian Molefe was visiting a shebeen in Saxonwold.
At least there can be no denying that was at least an arms' length transaction.
* James-Brent Styan authored a book on the South African electricity industry called Blackout, The Eskom Crisis. It was published by Jonathan Ball in 2015. He writes here in his personal capacity and can be followed on twitter: @jamesstyan.
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