DA does not buy Minister Brown’s Trillian excuse

30 August 2017

The DA notes Public Enterprises Minister, Lynne Brown’s claim that she did “not know” that Eskom was lying about its relationship with the Gupta-linked Trillian.

The Minister’s comments come after Eskom suddenly made a U-turn on Monday after it initially claimed that the R1.6 billion it had paid to Trillian and Mckinsey was above board.

The DA simply does not buy the Minister’s poor excuse. "I didn't know" is not good enough and as the Minister of Public Enterprises, she should have known.

It is becoming increasingly clear that the Minister is failing at her job as shareholder representative. Under her watch, dodgy dealings at Eskom for the benefit of the Guptas, have become a common practice.

The DA finds the Minister’s sudden revelations rather suspicious considering that she had allegedly misled Parliament when she seemingly failed to reveal if there had been any existing contracts of engagement between Eskom and Trillian, in a written reply to a DA parliamentary question.

Minister Brown needs to stop digging deeper holes for herself and lay bare what she knows or come clean as to who lied to her.

All those involved in Eskom's latest scandal must be held to account. These include the Minister, under whose watch this happened, and the suspended Eskom CFO, Anoj Singh, who not only facilitated Eskom’s procurement of these contracts but also allegedly orchestrated the power utility’s lies when this scandal came to light.

The DA has already laid charges against Anoj Singh regarding his work as a Gupta henchmen at Eskom, and we have also reported the Minister to the Public Protector.

The DA will ensure that this Trillian saga is duly investigated at the upcoming Eskom Inquiry.

Issued by Natasha Mazzone, DA Shadow Minister of Public Enterprises, 30 August 2017