Cyril Ramaphosa must provide answers on Eskom-Gupta deals
13 September 2015
Newspaper reports today confirm that state-owned and state-controlled power utility, Eskom, bent over backwards to ensure that the politically-connected Gupta family were awarded a coal deal to the value of R4 billion.
It is incumbent on Cyril Ramaphosa, as head of government’s “war room” on the energy crisis, to provide a full and detailed explanation as to how this occurred under his watch, whether he was informed about the deal, and what role he played in ensuring it was rubberstamped. I will today be writing to Mr Ramaphosa to ask questions in this regard.
Gupta-owned Company, Tegeta Exploration and Resources, astonishingly landed a R4-billion deal to supply Majuba power station in Mpumalanga with coal for the next 10 years, despite having been rejected since 2011, due to their poor standard of coal. The company was awarded the deal on its fifth attempt, after failing a coal quality test four times - at a cost of R100 000 per test to Eskom. After the deal was concluded, four senior employees were controversially suspended after they questioned the quality of the Gupta coal.
The analysis reports following the tests show the coal to be supplied as “marginal’, raising questions as to why such dicey coal was chosen over other more suitable options.