Eskom under attack

Trillian paid millions for doing nothing

IN MORE evidence in Parliament on how Eskom paid Trillian millions of rand for doing nothing, a former senior employee said the company did not have any employees but had billed the power utility R30.6 million.

Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Des van Rooyen was named as one of the senior figures who facilitated work for Trillian from his department.

Former Trillian Management Consulting chief Bianca Goodson disclosed how Van Rooyen had sat in one of the meetings early last year for the company’s involvement in the Back to Basics programme.

Goodson, who was testifying in the state capture inquiry yesterday, also told MPs how Trillian was paid R30.6m by Eskom for doing nothing.

This is similar to evidence given by another former Trillian senior employee, Mosilo Mothepu, this week.

Mothepu was the chief executive of another subsidiary of Trillian Capital Partners, Trillian Financial Advisory.

Fired

Goodson also told the portfolio committee on public enterprises that she had learnt from one of her colleagues that Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan was going to be fired.

This eventually happened in the dead-of-night cabinet reshuffle in March this year.

Goodson, who worked at Trillian for four months before she quit, said that during her tenure she had seen only one invoice at Trillian.

“It was for R30.6m. It was for a corporate plan and it was for (suspended Eskom chief financial officer) Anoj Singh,” she said.

“What is concerning, with hindsight, between January and March 2016 there were two people working there.

“We were building a company. When I saw that invoice of R30.6m I didn’t know what it was for,” said Goodson.

She said she had later seen other transactions from advocate Geoff Budlender SC when he was leading an inquiry into Trillian.

She said they had met Van Rooyen in early January last year at the offices of the Municipal Infrastructure Support Agent (Misa) in Pretoria.

Before the meeting she was asked to compile a profile of the company to be submitted to Van Rooyen.

She said she had done as ordered, and Van Rooyen had shared the plans of the department with Trillian.

“At the meeting with the minister we presented the respective capabilities of each company.

“The minister seemed happy with those capabilities,” said Goodson.

She did not follow through on whether Trillian had received work at the Department of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs because she had already left.

In her testimony this week, Mothepu also said that Trillian had been paid R600m by Eskom for doing nothing.

She said she had seen the transactions when she had a meeting with Budlender.