Duck soup: Gupta’s using public enterprises for private profits
15 February 2016
If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, there needs to be a lot of contrary evidence to make us believe it is not a duck. So it is with the recent acquisitive activities of the Gupta-owned Tegeta Resources.
Tegeta has put in an offer for the Optimum coal mine, a mine which Glencore, one of the world's most admired mining companies could not make viable. Along with this acquisition, Tegeta has just secured coal supply contracts for not just one but two Eskom power stations. It has resumed supplying the Hendrina power station from Optimum, which when it was owned by Glencore, was supplying Hendrina with coal that was allegedly sub-standard; so sub-standard that it provoked Eskom to issue Optimum with a R2.5 billion fine.
On top of that, Eskom has ended a contract with an Exxaro owned colliery that was supplying Arnot power station, in favor of coal to be trucked in from Optimum. That looks like a duck.
Then it is revealed that the new Minister of Mineral Resources, Mosebenzi Zwane, who has a history of what one could politely call "facilitation" of Gupta family interests flies over to Switzerland with the Guptas to negotiate the Optimum sales deal. A Gupta factotum denies this happened, the Minister's staff confirms it. The similarity to a walking duck is unmistakable.