Gigaba adviser asked former Eskom CEO to meet Guptas

Former Eskom boss Brian Dames says he resisted early attempts by the politically connected Gupta family to capture the power utility.

Dames appeared before Parliament’s public enterprises committee, which is probing allegations of the capture of parastatals including Eskom, Transnet and Denel.

Dames, who was Eskom CEO between 2010 and 2014, said that during his tenure, he had been asked to meet the Guptas by the adviser to Malusi Gigaba, who was public enterprises minister at the time.

“I was asked [for a meeting] by the minister’s adviser, Siyabonga Mahlangu,” he said. “It was somewhere in Midrand,” and there was one other individual, “I assume one of the Gupta brothers.”

The meeting took place at Sahara Computers in Midrand, a company owned by the Guptas.

“After the meeting, I was angry and I called Mahlangu and I said, ‘You won’t bring these people again’.”

During the meeting, the Guptas had requested coal contracts and wanted to discuss The New Age newspaper deal, he said. “It was a strange discussion…. They said, ‘We have decided we can work with you’.” Dames said the work being done by the parliamentary committee was commendable, but “I think it’s too late — you should have done this a long time ago.

“I had raised the alarm and engaged with the former chair of the [public enterprises] committee…. I may not have articulated it correctly.”

Dames’s career at Eskom spanned more than two decades in various positions. He was appointed CEO in 2010 and stepped down in 2014, “for personal reasons”. He told the inquiry that when he was CEO, the board frequently interfered in procurement processes.

The board was then headed by Zola Tsotsi. “I said Zola as a nonexecutive chair should not involve himself with the operations of Eskom and he should not meet suppliers. Suppliers were directly engaged and [I pointed out] it was not correct.”

Dames, who had worked at Eskom’s Koeberg nuclear power plant as a nuclear physicist before this time, said there was no need for nuclear power in SA and the country would never be able to afford it. He called for Eskom to be broken up and unbundled to improve governance and competitiveness.

Observers have pointed out that the current status quo in which Eskom deals with both the generation of power and its transmission was undesirable and stifled the growth of independent power producers.

The inquiry’s scope includes the reappointment of Brian Molefe as group CEO of Eskom; the power utility’s role in the purchase of Optimum Coal by the then Gupta-owned Tegeta Exploration and Resources; the award of about R11.7bn worth of coal supply contracts — at inflated prices — to Tegeta; the R43m contract with the Guptas’ The New Age media firm; payments of more than R400m to Trillian Capital Partners for consulting and advisory services; and allegations of impropriety made against former acting CEO Matshela Koko, who is on suspension.

On Wednesday, the inquiry also heard damning testimony from Ted Blom, an energy director at the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) and a former Eskom employee.

Blom told the inquiry that a “fixer team” set up by President Jacob Zuma, made up of “preeminent” persons including doctors and lawyers had attempted to loot Eskom in 2009. He said he had attempted to alert Zuma in his capacity as the head of the ANC about the mess at Eskom. He had even

submitted a detailed report on corruption and governance lapses to the president during one evening meeting. Blom left Eskom in 2008. He told the committee that Zuma then set up the fixer team, ostensibly to deal with issues he had raised. A meeting was organised with the team by former JSE chairman Norman Lowenthal. “I was informed to meet the fixer team in Midrand … during the meeting the ‘fixer team’ [indicated] that they wanted to ‘join the gravy train at Eskom’.” Blom said he was angry when he realised that the fixer team actually wanted to use his expertise and knowledge of Eskom to loot the power utility. He left the meeting and later received a call from Lowenthal expressing his dismay that he had insulted and walked out of the meeting with “pre-eminent persons”.

“Instead of fighting corruption, they wanted me to help them eat at Eskom, because I have so much experience, and I would have been able to guide them [to loot],” Blom said in response to questions from EFF chief whip Floyd Shivambu.