Guptas and Duduzane Zuma included in Eskom Parliamentary Inquiry on DA request

21 June 2017

The DA welcomes the approval today of our request that the implicated Gupta family members, and Duduzane Zuma will be summoned to appear before Parliament's Inquiry into Eskom.

The DA has pressed hard since early May 2017 for this Inquiry to be formed in Parliament, and now that it has begun, we will work to uncover the full extent of the rot at Eskom and it's capture for narrow political interests.

The truth is that the Gupta family and other insiders have captured our country, purely to loot our public entities. To this end, governance has been allowed to collapse at Eskom, all in pursuit of the enrichment of a select few.

We are pleased that the Eskom Inquiry will include summoning of the Guptas, Duduzane Zuma, Brian Molefe, Ben Ngubane and other executives and board members, as well as to scrutinise several damning investigative reports into Eskom, at the DA's insistence. These include the Denton report, the report into Matshela Koko’s alleged nepotism scandal and the Eskom-Tegeta-Optimum Coal deal – which implicates the Guptas.

The people of South Africa deserve answers for how public money has been shamefully ransacked and abused at Eskom, how governance has collapsed and how the rot of corruption has taken hold.

Now Parliament must robustly interrogate the issues at Eskom, and must take strong action to restore Eskom to stability.

The committee will meet in late July to finalise all the documents so that we can begin in earnest come the beginning of August.

The DA will fully participate in this Eskom Inquiry which we called for, and we look forward to interrogating the implicated Guptas and Mr Duduzane Zuma in person.

Issued by Natasha Mazzone, DA Shadow Minister of Public Enterprises, 21 June 2017