High-level talks over Molefe
Zuma, Ramaphosa in discussions with minister to resolve Eskom ‘fiasco’
Public Enterprises Minister Lynne Brown appears to have heeded the call from the ANC to rescind Brian Molefe’s return to Eskom as the group chief executive.
It emerged yesterday that Brown is in discussions with President Jacob Zuma and his deputy Cyril Ramaphosa in a bid to resolve the debacle surrounding the controversial reappointment of Molefe by the Eskom board.
This comes after the ANC ordered Brown and the Eskom board to rescind Molefe’s return to the power utility.
Brown’s spokesman Colin Cruywagen yesterday said that at the meeting, held on Monday between Brown and ANC officials about the re-appointment of Molefe, it was agreed that the government must resolve the matter.
“Minister Brown is in discussion with the president and deputy president on the matter,” Cruywagen said.
The DA came out guns blazing, blaming the ANC cadre deployment and cadre re-deployment policy for the fiasco.
“If the ANC is serious about opposing what is going on at Eskom, it will support our call for a parliamentary inquiry,” DA shadow minister of public enterprises Natasha Mazzone said.
“This is vital so that we can, once and for all, get to the bottom of the cause of the rot that has set in at Eskom.
“The trickle of allegations of corruption and capture emanating from Eskom has now turned into a waterfall that simply beggars belief.”
Brown and the Eskom board are expected to appear before parliament’s portfolio committee on public enterprises tomorrow to account for the Molefe fiasco as well as the disastrous state of Eskom.
The DA said it would push for a firm commitment that a full-scale parliamentary inquiry be instituted urgently.
“We will directly request Minister Lynne Brown and the Eskom board to voluntarily submit to a full-scale parliamentary inquiry,” Mazzone said.
“It is the only mechanism that can truly hold Eskom to account and uncover how Brian Molefe came to be returned to Eskom.
“It is time for parliament to perform its oversight role and fully investigate the shocking allegations and to ensure that those who are implicated, directly or indirectly, face the full might of the law,” Mazzone said.