Gigaba’s ex-adviser set up Gupta meeting with Eskom
Former CEO angry over coal requests
Former Eskom CEO Brian Dames has told MPs that he has discussed coal supply contracts with a member of the Gupta family.
He alleged the meeting between him and the family member was brokered by a former adviser to Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba.
Dames said the meeting took place at the offices of Sahara computers, an IT firm owned by the Guptas.
Testifying before the public enterprises committee’s inquiry into state capture and responding to a question by DA MP Natasha Mazzone, Dames said he was asked by then public enterprises minister Gigaba’s adviser, Siyabonga Mahlangu, to “see some people”.
Dames was employed at Eskom from 1987. He rose through the ranks to occupy various senior positions, including as CEO for four years before resigning in March 2014.
Under tough questioning, Dames said he did not know who the people he had met were, but believed one of them was one of the Gupta brothers.
He said the meeting had been “strange” and had made him “very angry”, adding that he told Mahlangu after the meeting to “never bring these people to me again”.
“He arranged a meeting where I was present, it was somewhere in Midrand, there was one other individual in this discussion. I assume it was one of the brothers and after this meeting I was quite angry, I was very angry.”
Three items were discussed at that meeting.
“He said ‘we’ve decided we can work with you’ – I don’t know who ‘we’ was. There was a request for a coal contract for Lethabo which … needed no extra coal. There was a request for another coal station after Medupi and Kusile – a Coal 3 thing and then there was the newspaper thing.”
ANC MP Namhla Nobanda questioned how “from 2014 until now, you still cannot tell us whether one of the men you met that day was one of the Gupta brothers despite them appearing on TV, in stories …everything”. Dames only responded that he could not.