Brown to appear before committee tomorrow, and crucial documents must be tabled
22 May 2017
The DA has asked the Secretary of the Portfolio Committee on Public Enterprises, Mr Disang Mocumi, to ensure that Eskom and Minister Lynne Brown bring crucial reports and documents to the Committee tomorrow.
Brown is due to appear tomorrow before the committee, on the insistence of the DA, to account for the outrageous reappointment of Brian Molefe and the general emergence of the most incredible scandals at Eskom in the past week.
It has been confirmed that the Committee will meet at 09:30 tomorrow morning at the Townhouse Hotel.
Minister Lynne Brown and the Eskom board have confirmed their attendance and it is imperative that the Minister now stick to that commitment considering that she bunked out of accounting to Parliament last week, on the basis of a legally inadequate argument that the Brian Molefe matter was sub judice.
The DA has requested that the committee members have the following documentation in preparation of the committee’s inquiry into the Brian Molefe fiasco:
- Minutes from Eskom’s board meetings related to the reappointment of Mr Molefe as Eskom CEO;
- Molefe’s original contract of employment, in addition to his current contract of reappointment;
- The letter from the board instructing Molefe’s R30 million “golden handshake”; and
- The letter from Minister Brown giving the Eskom board the go-ahead to reappoint Molefe as Eskom CEO.
Tomorrow’s meeting of the Portfolio Committee will be the first time Minister Brown will have to account before Parliament regarding the Brian Molefe fiasco.
There has been a complete breakdown of good governance at Eskom, and Minister Brown’s seeming indifference to the capture of Eskom by the Zuma-Gupta mafia corruption ring has gone on for too long.
It is becoming clear that Eskom is in crisis. In the space of just seven days the power utility has been embroiled in several new and deeply concerning scandals:
- Former Mineral Resources Minister, Ngoako Ramatlhodi, alleged that the then Eskom CEO Brian Molefe and Chairperson Ben Ngubane attempted to coerce him to withdraw Glencore’s Optimum mining licences in order to ensure that the Guptas takeover Glencore’s coal mines.
- Minister Brown seemingly misled Parliament when she failed to disclose if there had been contracts of engagement between the Gupta-linked, Trillian and Eskom, in her reply to a DA parliamentary question.
- Duduzane Zuma allegedly produced a fake ‘intelligence’ report which was used by the President to fire four Eskom executives in 2015.
The DA has called for a full parliamentary inquiry into Eskom, and the DA believes that this inquiry must proceed urgently. Eskom has become a haven for the politically-compromised as they loot and plunder our country’s public coffers.
The President, despite being implicated in all of the most serious Eskom scandals, has failed to intervene and it is now up to Parliament to ensure that good governance returns to Eskom.
Issued by Natasha Mazzone, DA Shadow Minister of Public Enterprises, 22 May 2017
