Eskom faces a power grilling in Parliament

ESKOM faces another grilling in Parliament tomorrow over its coal contracts with the Guptas.

Chairman of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) Themba Godi confirmed yesterday they were looking at issues of compliance regarding the contracts.

The appearance of Eskom comes after the National Treasury tabled a report, by PriceWaterhouseCoopers, to Scopa on irregularities worth billions of rand in the coal contracts.

This is the second successive week that the power utility faces Parliament after it was severely criticised by the portfolio committee on public enterprises on the re-appointment of Brian Molefe as Chief Executive.

The portfolio committee said it was unhappy with the answers given by Eskom last week and decided to launch an inquiry into Eskom.

The Parliamentary inquiry was expected to begin in the next few weeks after Eskom submitted some of the documents to Parliament on Molefe’s re-appointment.

The committee said it needed the documents within 14 days and it would then initiate a process for an inquiry.

Godi said they would focus on issues of compliance relating to the PwC report when Eskom appears before them tomorrow. MPs were left fuming two weeks ago when they heard Eskom did not follow procedures in the awarding of the coal contracts to the Guptas.

Scopa, which is Parliament’s finance watchdog, had demanded answers from Eskom and decided to call it to explain some of the decisions taken and the alleged breaches in the procurement process.

Public Enterprises Minister Lynne Brown has also launched her own investigation into Eskom’s procurement process.

The investigation will be led by the Special Investigation Unit and it will look at seven reports on Eskom, including Dentons. In addition, President Jacob Zuma has set up an Inter-Ministerial Committee, chaired by Minister of Justice Michael Masutha, to look into Eskom’s decision to re-appoint Molefe.

The IMC would look at how best to deal with such a situation in future.

Zuma said he would not interfere with the work of Parliament, to institute an inquiry into Eskom, and also the court challenges by the opposition parties.

The DA and EFF have challenged Eskom’s decision to re-appoint Molefe.

The case was postponed from this week to June 5 in the Pretoria High Court. The opposition parties believe Eskom made a mistake to re-appoint Molefe and there was no justifiable reason for them to do this.

The Eskom matter has dominated debates in Parliament in the past week, and parties – including the ANC – want the power utility to reverse the decision.