Brown knew of Molefe’s cushy contract — union
Public Enterprises Minister Lynne Brown knew about Brian Molefe’s employment contract, trade union Solidarity says.
In papers filed at the High Court in Pretoria on Wednesday, Deon Reyneke, the trade union’s deputy general secretary for the energy, defence and aerospace sectors, said Eskom chairman Ben Ngubane wrote to Brown two months after Molefe’s initial appointment in November 2015 to make arrangements for Molefe’s retirement.
Ngubane’s letter to Brown contradicts her statements to Parliament that she had nothing to do with Eskom’s employment relationship with Molefe.
She said there were two memorandums of incorporation relevant to Molefe’s employment, adopted in 2014 – before his appointment – and 2016.
“The 2014 version did not require the minister to be noted as a party to the employment agreement of the group chief executive,” she said. The 2016 contract was concluded in terms of the 2014 agreement.
“It didn’t have to be shown to me,” Brown told the parliamentary committee on public enterprises on Tuesday.
“When Mr Molefe quit Eskom in November 2016, I was under the impression he had resigned. I was not aware that he had applied for early retirement. This I only learned in April 2017, after reading in the media that Mr Molefe was receiving a R30m payout from Eskom.”
But in a letter attached to the affidavit, Ngubane sought Brown’s approval to include these provisions in Molefe’s five-year contract.
Ngubane wrote to Brown that Molefe “has not been able to benefit from the growth opportunity in a single pension fund”.
To bridge the gap, Ngubane suggested including provisions in Molefe’s contract allowing him to retire early on the basis that he would be aged 63 in terms of the Eskom Pension and Provident Fund’s rules when his term expired in five years. This would be done by awarding him 10 years of pensionable service.
An Eskom official’s erroneous presentation to a board committee — on which Molefe served and failed to recuse himself, according to Reyneke — resulted in the retirement age being recorded as 50 in the contract signed with Molefe.
Solidarity has joined the DA in asking the court to review and set aside Eskom’s decision to bring Molefe back as CEO.