I did not lie over Molefe, says Brown
PUBLIC Enterprises Minister Lynne Brown has insisted that she has not lied to parliament, after the ANC said her submission to the legislature on the reappointment of Eskom chief executive Brian Molefe amounted to perjury.
Brown said she was ready to defend her stance on Molefe to the ANC.
She also announced that she had instituted her own forensic probe into allegations of corruption at Eskom.
It would be headed by a retired judge, and would look into transactions going back 10 years.
The ANC issued a hard-hitting statement against Brown and the Eskom board of directors this week, after they told parliament that Molefe had not resigned but had been on unpaid leave when he took up the position of ANC MP. The Eskom board had earlier said that Molefe had resigned before changing its tune‚ saying he had retired.
Speaking yesterday ahead of her department budget vote debate, Brown said she told no lies at a heated meeting with the portfolio committee on public enterprises on Tuesday.
“I remain a member of the ANC whether they [party] have issued 5 000 statements.
“I am a deployee of the ANC‚ I subject myself to the wisdom of the party leadership,” she said.
“The ANC has a right to say what it wishes to say‚ and I will defend myself or accept it.
“I am not lying to parliament so I don’t know what more you want.”
Meanwhile, the DA has said that asking Eskom chairman Ben Ngubane to investigate allegations that Eskom was destroying documents related to the reinstatement of Molefe was the equivalent of asking a fox to guard a henhouse.
The DA claims that it had it on good authority that Eskom was destroying key documents in the Molefe debacle.
The DA’s Natasha Mazzone called on Brown to investigate and confirm if this was the case.
Brown’s spokesman, Colin Cruywagen, said Brown would ask Ngubane to investigate.
Mazzone was not satisfied with the answer from Brown and said the DA would write a letter, asking her to send her officials to collect documents at Eskom needed for the investigation into the reappointment of Molefe.
Mazzone said that, according to numerous allegations‚ Ngubane appeared to be a compromised individual.
Cruywagen said yesterday that, in addition to instructing the Eskom board to investigate, Brown had also asked Mazzone to approach the minister with the evidence.