Eskom: Molefe fiasco demands our full-scale Inquiry request proceeds

31 May 2017

The DA has written to Public Enterprises Committee Acting Chair Zukiswa Rantho, demanding answers for the delay in constituting what we believe to be a most urgent full scale Parliamentary Inquiry into the rot at Eskom.

The announcement today that Brian Molefe’s return to Eskom must be rescinded shows that governance at Eskom has crumbled.

Only a full-scale Parliamentary inquiry has the capacity to get to the bottom of the rot at Eskom. It must be constituted and scheduled immediately. It is abundantly clear that the Eskom Board has acted like a law unto itself and parliament must rein it in.

The DA believes that ANC efforts to establish alternative investigations into Eskom, and the Brian Molefe fiasco, are nothing but distractions. Only Parliament has the Constitutional power to truly probe the full scale of the crisis and capture of Eskom.

The Special Investigative Unit (SIU), which Minister Brown wants to investigate only certain procurement issues at Eskom, reports to President Zuma and will be empowered by a Presidential proclamation – this will essentially allow the Gupta-captured President to lead the investigation into the Gupta-captured Eskom procurement deals with Gupta companies. It is clear to the DA that this will be nothing but a sham.

The SIU investigation will be nothing but the ANC Zuma-Gupta cohort investigating the Gupta-capture of Eskom, behind closed doors. This can never be considered impartial or transparent.

In the Select Committee on Public Enterprises at Parliament today, it was confirmed that a forensic company has now been instructed to investigate the destruction of key documents linked to Molefe’s contracts, after the DA raised the fact that documents were possibly being destroyed. We welcome this investigation, but it shows that Eskom insiders are intent on the Brian Molefe fiasco not being properly investigated.

The DA will continue to push for the Parliamentary inquiry as this is the only way we, and the South African public, can trust that the the full extent of the rot at Eskom will be brought to light and that those responsible will be forced to admit and then account.

Issued by Natasha Mazzone, DA Shadow Minister of Public Enterprises, 31 May 2017