Daily Dispatch
Molefe not the star attraction
ESKOM with Brian Molefe at the helm continues to make headlines. Much is being made of his lack of fitness, his irregular R30-million “pension agreement” and the absurd bid by Public Enterprises Minister Lynne Browne to rationalise Molefe’s jump back to Eskom.
All of this is important but it is not the main game.
Former mineral resources minister Ngoako Ramathlodi took us closer to the real action with his claim that Molefe and the Eskom board chair Ben Ngubane tried to pressure him into suspending Glencore’s mining licences in 2015.
Glencore was providing Eskom with coal from its Optimum mine at the time.
For refusing Ramathlodi says he was axed by President Jacob Zuma.
The background machinations have been denied, but it is a matter of public record that in September 2015 Zuma fired Ramathlodi and replaced him with Mosebenzi Zwane, a mining novice and Gupta crony who helped cover the family’s tracks in the 2103 Waterfall Air Base debacle.
As mining minister Zwane became the only SA official authorised to sign off on an exchange of mineral rights. Within three months of his appointment, in December 2015, this Cabinet minister set aside his official duties and flew with the Gupta family to Switzerland to personally oversee their “acquisition” of the Optimum coal mine.
Perhaps it is important here to note that the biggest single shareholder in the Gupta’s Tegata Exploration and Resources company is the president’s son, Duduzane Zuma, with a 30% stake.
A month after Tegata prised Optimum out of Gencore’s reluctant hands Eskom upped its coal requirements and extended Optimum’s contract for supplies to a second power station. And then Eskom signed yet another contract with yet another Guptaowned coal mine, Kroonfontein, to supply yet another power station, Komati.
This week Ngubane did exactly what has already been predicted: he warned of power cuts this winter unless the National Treasury urgently signs purchase agreements for Eskom to build up its coal reserves.
If it manages to increase its demand for coal Eskom will put the owners of mines such as Optimum and Kroonfontein in line to hit a massive mining jackpot.
This is the game being played on South Africa’s field. In it Molefe is a player, not the main attraction.
This game has an added dimension. In March last year it emerged that these same two families had obtained coal exporting rights via the Richards Bay coal terminal. Where exactly all of this will lead is uncertain, but there appear to be no limits on the horizon.
Unfortunately this game is not only about winners. Apart from Glencore, there is another casualty – the clean, green, SMME and job creating renewable energy sector, the emergence of which is being obstinately and deliberately blocked by the government.
From as far back as mid-2016 the UDM leader, Bantu Holomisa, was able to provide what is possibly the clearest perspective of the events underway on the field. Writing on these pages he said: “The role of the president’s children and family in siphoning off national resources has surely played no small part in the downgrades by international ratings institutions. No businessperson in their right mind could be encouraged to invest in a country whose economy is run by one or two families.”