Defence of Zuma, Guptas
BELEAGUERED former Eskom chairman Ben Ngubane says he and former Eskom chief executive Brian Molefe were a target of attacks because of their closeness to President Jacob Zuma.
Ngubane, who resigned from the Eskom board this week, told The Mercury that his woes also had to do with factions within the ANC.
The former KwaZulu-Natal premier charged that he was “more than ready” for the parliamentary inquiry into Eskom, but warned that he would not take “useless questions”.
He also confirmed that he once had a business relationship with Zuma’s controversial friends, the Guptas.
Ngubane and his ally, Molefe, have been fingered in the allegations of state capture by the Guptas.
They are accused of favouring the family in awarding coal contracts at the power utility.
But they have denied this.
Ngubane surprisingly quit on Monday in the wake of the storm caused by the reappointment of Molefe to Eskom.
Political parties, including the ANC, DA and IFP, have accused Ngubane of trying to escape answering the committee’s questions.
Ngubane, who said he had resigned to go into private business, has hit back, saying he was the first to call for the investigations into allegations against the board.
He said Molefe was also persecuted because of his links to Zuma.
“Everybody has been saying that I am aligned to the president (Zuma), that the president is my cousin and all sorts of rubbish. He is my friend, so why on earth am I going to say I don’t like him.To say he is my cousin is fabrication,” he said.
“This absolutely has something to do with the camps within the ANC. In the case of Brian, it has been very much impacted by that, and in my case as well. When people think you are aligned to somebody, they want to hunt you down,” he said.
Ngubane said he was ready for the parliamentary inquiry, but challenged members of the committee to conduct a thorough research of Eskom’s business dealings before putting together questions.
“They must send their accountants to Eskom to look at all the documentation regarding procurement agreements before they call us to the committee and ask us useless questions.
“They must have investigated beforehand to prepare for that hearing, otherwise it is a kangaroo thing where people would just be insulting us and trying to humiliate us,” he said.
Ngubane said Eskom’s name was still being dragged through the mud even though the board had performed well, rescuing the parastatal from years of bankruptcy.
“Now Eskom is in a very healthy financial position, and financial results, when they are released, will show that there had been serious progress.
“Don’t forget that in one year, we connected about 200 000 households with electricity. It was a huge achievement,” said Ngubane.
Regarding allegations by former mineral resources minister Ngoako Ramatlhodi that he and Molefe had forced him to withdraw Glencore’s Optimum mining licences to clear a space for the Guptas’ Tegeta mining company takeover, Ngubane said it was a good business decision that helped Eskom to avert load shedding.
“From Tegeta, we were buying coal for R150 per ton, as opposed to Glencore, where we were forking out R300 to R500 per ton,” said Ngubane.
“It’s absolutely nonsense to say we favoured Tegeta. We just carried on with policies that had been applied previously over many years of prepayment for coal.”
DEPUTY President Cyril Ramaphosa told Parliament yesterday that President Jacob Zuma was close to setting up the Commission of Inquiry into state capture.
Zuma was busy consulting with lawyers on the matter, Ramaphosa told the National Assembly.
The next step would be to look at the modalities for the inquiry while the terms of reference would determine the scope of work to be done, Ramaphosa said.
The ANC has also come out in support of the inquiry into state capture.
Ramaphosa said he was happy all the parties supported the establishment of the inquiry to get to the bottom of state capture in the country.
He said there have been many stories flying around and it would be important for all those implicated to clear their names.
Asked by Hlengiwe Hlope of the EFF if he personally supported the commission of inquiry, he said he did.
“Yes, I do. I have gone public about why I support the commission of inquiry. I support the inquiry into this matter because there are allegations made all round,” he said.
“Anybody who has any evidence should welcome the inquiry and present themselves. It is important for those who are mentioned to clear their names,” he said.
Ramaphosa said the ANC was not trying to prolong the process by suggesting it should stretch back to 1994.
This follows the decision of the party’s national executive committee a few weeks ago.
Ramaphosa said the ANC wanted the process to get to the bottom of the truth as quickly as possible.
He was happy that the Hawks had started to look at criminal cases on state capture, adding that in the end the truth would come out.
The move followed a trove of e-mails implicating a number of top government officials, the Guptas and their associates in the running of state affairs.
Zuma has gone to court to challenge former public protector Thuli Madonsela’s State of Capture report.
In the report, Madonsela directed Zuma to appoint Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng to select a single judge to chair the inquiry.
This is one of the points Zuma has objected to as the law allowed him to appoint a commission of inquiry, and not any other party.
Zuma has also complained that he was never given an opportunity to respond to the allegations before the report was released by Madonsela.