DA wants Molefe details

CONTRACTS, PENSION PROPOSAL, ESKOM BOARD’S MINUTES Minister under pressure as party seeks to overturn reappointment.

The Democratic Alliance has asked parliament to ensure Public Enterprises Minister Lynne Brown provides MPs with documents relating to Brian Molefe’s reappointment at Eskom and the alternative R30 million pension payout she rejected.

DA public enterprises spokesperson Natasha Mazzone said she has asked the secretary of the portfolio committee on public enterprises to request the minister table Molefe’s initial and current contracts, the pension proposal, the minutes of the Eskom board meeting on his reappointment and her letter approving the step.

Mazzone said Brown’s refusal to appear before the portfolio committee last week to answer questions on the matter on the grounds that it was sub judice was spurious and she had in effect “bunked out of accounting to parliament”.

The DA is challenging Molefe’s reappointment as CEO of Eskom, after a brief stint as an ANC MP, in court.

Brown will now be briefing the portfolio committee today.

She is under pressure on several fronts over Molefe’s return to Eskom, which the ANC also condemned.

The minister vetoed the board’s proposal for a hefty pension payout to Molefe, saying that under the circumstances the public would get better value from him completing the contract for his old job.

She has also defended him against suggestions in the former public protector’s State of Capture report that under his watch Eskom strove to benefit a Gupta family company, Tegeta Exploration & Resources.

However, the outcome of an investigation by PricewaterhouseCoopers released by National Treasury this month confirmed that the state-owned company did not follow due process when it contracted Tegeta as a coal supplier.

Mazzone accused Brown of ignoring the signs of corruption at Eskom.

“Tomorrow’s meeting of the portfolio committee will be the first time Minister Brown will have to account before parliament regarding the Brian Molefe fiasco,” she said.

“Brown’s seeming indifference to the capture of Eskom by the Zuma-Gupta mafia corruption ring has gone on for too long.” – ANA

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