Eskom: Zuma undermines Parliament with Ministerial Task Team

President Jacob Zuma's announcement that an Inter-Ministerial Committee (IMC) will be established to investigate the very serious problems at Eskom, rather than Parliament, as the body mandated to oversee and ensure the smooth running of the entity, has flatly undermined Parliament.

The President is clearly deathly scared of the evidence which will emerge from a full-scale and transparent Parliamentary Inquiry.

Murmurs yesterday that the Parliamentary Inquiry could summon the Guptas and Duduzane Zuma to appear must have been frightening to President Zuma.

Zuma's IMC will be made up of the Ministers of Public Enterprises, Lynne Brown, Energy, Mmamoloko Kubayi, Finance, Malusi Gigaba, and Justice and Correctional services, Michael Masutha - all Ministers firmly behind Zuma, and many with their own reputations of being captured.

We cannot accept that Zuma's cheerleader ministers, and captured ministers, could possibly deliver a credible investigation into the very of capture at Eskom by the Zuma-Gupta Mafia.

Parliament is the only body that is empowered to oversee and investigate the level of rot at Eskom and it is only a full-scale Parliamentary Inquiry that can get to the bottom this.

The DA and South Africa will not stand for anything less.

The DA has already confirmed that there is broad bi-partisan support for a full-scale Parliamentary Inquiry into Eskom and Brian Molefe's bizarre reinstatement.

Now is the time for the Public Enterprises Committee to step up, and not allow Jacob Zuma to sweep this under the carpet.

The DA welcomes the fact that the Portfolio Committee has already broadly agreed to proceed with a Parliamentary Inquiry and look forward to completing this investigation and restoring the integrity of Eskom for the benefit of the public.

Statement issued by Natasha Mazzone MP, DA Shadow Minister of Public Enterprises, 25 May 2017