Trillian CEO ‘made a killing on Nene axing’
Former top Trillian executive Mosilo Mothepu says CEO Eric Wood stockpiled US dollars just before Nhlanhla Nene was fired as finance minister in December 2015 and reverse-traded the dollars soon after the 2015 cabinet reshuffle, making a killing after the rand tanked.
President Jacob Zuma’s decision to sack Nene as finance minister and replace him with Des van Rooyen sent the rand and markets into a tailspin.
The rand plummeted to R15.38/$ before selling at R14.94. Van Rooyen was swiftly replaced by Pravin Gordhan — later fired by Zuma early in 2017.
Mothepu provided evidence to the portfolio committee on public enterprises’ inquiry into governance at Eskom, Denel and Transnet.
“On Nenegate, I was told, but it’s unconfirmed, that Wood and his people traded on the preknowledge [that Nene would be fired].”
Mothepu was financial advisory CEO at Trillian and left the company in 2016 after discovering irregularities in dealings between Trillian and Eskom. Mothepu said the company had sent invoices to Eskom and other entities without contracts in place and without work actually being done — in most instances. She referred to the controversial R564m payment the power utility made to Trillian, saying the advisory services the company offered were not worth that amount.
Mothepu said that Wood also had an improper relationship with suspended Eskom chief financial officer Anoj Singh, which Wood leveraged to score lucrative deals for Trillian.
“While we were putting together proposals Singh would give us Eskom information … to boost our proposals … he would give us information on a memory stick, so that [Trillian and McKinsey] would have insider information that other people would not have.”
The information included Eskom’s turnaround strategy; corporate plan; minutes of board meetings; and Treasury policies, which gave Trillian an edge over rival consultancy firms in the heavily contested sector.
Mothepu detailed how Trillian scored lucrative deals and milked state-owned companies by using its connections at the parastatals.
She said Gupta lieutenant Salim Essa, who left Trillian in 2017, had a relationship with at least one board member of major state-owned entities, which boosted the company’s
ability to score lucrative deals from these entities.
Mothepu also disclosed irregular arrangements between Transnet board member Stanley Shane and Trillian.
She said Shane was a member of Trillian and received R700,000 a month while he was also at Transnet, a clear conflict of interest.
Mothepu said Trillian had since instituted legal proceedings against her and the company had launched a smear campaign against her. She had been unemployed since leaving Trillian, with companies viewing her as a “political risk”.
EFF chief whip Floyd Shivambu said the revelations pointed to a much bigger crisis.
“It’s looting at an industrial scale … the problem is that it’s continuing … it’s an understatement to say it’s corruption.”
He suggested that the committee come up with immediate interventions and not wait for the conclusion of the inquiry to tackle the rampant looting at state-owned entities.
Trillian said on Tuesday that Mothepu “is a disgruntled former employee who has embarked upon a concerted strategy to discredit Trillian and its stakeholders”.
“Trillian and Dr Wood have on numerous occasions, and Dr Wood has under oath, given a complete and substantiated denial that [he] had any prior knowledge of minister Nene’s resignation.
“Furthermore, it is malicious and without any basis that Ms Mothepu states that Dr Wood stockpiled dollars pursuant to Nene’s departure or at all.
“Ms Mothepu has perjured herself and made attempts to mislead Parliament in regard to Trillian and Dr Wood,” the company said.