From Saxonwold shebeen to MP
Shamed by public protector, Molefe is set for comeback
FORMER Eskom CEO Brian Molefe is heading to parliament, paving the way for President Jacob Zuma to reshuffle his cabinet and appoint him a minister.
The Sunday Times can reveal that the ANC in the North West has asked Luthuli House to add Molefe to the list of ANC members it wants to send to parliament, making him eligible to be sworn in as an MP.
The move comes as Zuma’s supporters lobby the president to fire Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan and replace him with Molefe, who resigned as Eskom CEO in November after the public protector’s damning State of Capture report.
A tearful Molefe claimed that he had been visiting a shebeen in Saxonwold, Johannesburg, and not the Guptas, as the report suggested.
By sending him to parliament, Zuma’s backers are preparing Molefe for a cabinet position. Insiders say Zuma wants him to be the next finance minister.
Zuma is expected to reshuffle his cabinet to also accommodate outgoing AU Commission chair Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, who appears to have the president’s backing to replace him as ANC leader later this year.
The ANC has at least one vacant seat in parliament.
North West provincial secretary Dakota Legoete said he could not comment and the issue was being dealt with by ANC headquarters.
“From time to time we review lists and assess our strengths and weaknesses. Brian is a citizen of this country and a resident of this province. Him having announced his exit from Eskom and so excellently executed his mandate, we are of the view that he, and other cadres we are engaging, can contribute immensely to the strengthening and deepening of democracy in our province,” said Legoete.
Molefe also has the backing of the ANC Youth League, whose president, Collen Maine, has praised him.
“There have been success stories wherever he was . . . he is an example of black excellence,” said Maine.
ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe could not confirm Molefe’s inclusion on the list because he had not seen the request from the North West.
He said any ANC member could be added to the list of 10 standby MPs.
Molefe had not responded to questions sent to him at the time of going to press.
A cabinet member, who asked not to be named, said the news that Molefe would be sworn in as an MP meant a reshuffle was likely after the state of the nation address on February 9.
The Sunday Times spoke to an ANC leader with knowledge of Molefe’s pending deployment who said the former Eskom CEO’s skills were needed in parliament.
“We always complain that MPs don’t have capacity; he has the capacity. We need him,” the source said, adding that the ANC in the North West had confidence in Molefe because he was a “North West homeboy”.
Zuma’s backers expect Molefe to make major changes at the National Treasury because it is perceived as a stumbling block to major government projects, especially the nuclear programme.
Molefe, during his tenure at Eskom, was the champion of the nuclear programme, which has been criticised as unaffordable after it was projected to cost more than R1-trillion.
But Molefe, on various public platforms last year, rejected the criticism, saying he did not believe that the programme would burden the public purse.
Molefe argued that there were enough potential private-sector financiers prepared to take the risk of financing the nuclear programme.
“Even if it costs R1-trillion it will have the capability to repay the cost in 15 to 20 years,” he said.
“So you can take the revenues generated from nuclear, ring-fence it and use it for future nuclear activities,” he told Fin24 last year.
ANC insiders said the Treasury came under fire at the national ex- ecutive committee lekgotla this week. A delegate on the finance and industries commission accused Gordhan’s department of withholding funding for major projects.
But a senior Treasury official defended the department’s decisions, saying the country had low levels of revenue.
Molefe has vast knowledge of how the Treasury works because he worked in that department for eight years. He began as a director and left as a deputy director general for asset liability management in 2003.
He held a number of influential positions in state entities, including being CEO of the Public Investment Corporation and Transnet, before joining Eskom.
He was regarded as a shining star and respected as an astute professional until he was implicated in Thuli Madonsela’s report on state capture.
The then public protector investigated allegations that the Gupta family had obtained undue influence over the government. Her report revealed that Molefe had close ties to the Guptas, whose companies did business with Eskom.
According to the report Molefe and Ajay Gupta made 58 telephone calls to each other between August 2015 and March 2016.
Cellphone records also showed that Molefe had frequented the Guptas’ neighbourhood, Saxonwold, visiting the area about 19 times between August 5 and November 17 2015. Molefe disputed Madonsela’s findings.
“My cellphone reflects that I was in Saxonwold 14 times, close to the head of proverbial goats. My cellphone reflects I was in the area,” said Molefe.
“There’s a shebeen there, two streets away from the Gupta[s]. I will not admit or deny that I’ve gone to the shebeen.
“But there is a shebeen there,” he told reporters.
He then announced his resignation towards the end of last year.
Molefe is widely lauded within ANC circles for putting a stop to load-shedding after he was seconded to Eskom in April 2015.
Political analyst Somadoda Fikeni said Molefe’s pending move to parliament could not be looked at in isolation when it came to speculation about a cabinet reshuffle.
He said Zuma’s supporters — who have been agitating for Gordhan’s dismissal — did not want the president to repeat the mistake he made when he replaced former finance minister Nhlanhla Nene with an unknown backbencher in David “Des” van Rooyen. He said the Zuma group would instead look to someone like Molefe, who had “stature”.
“If it came now, on the back of those controversies we saw last year, it won’t do him much favour. Right now, the immediate thing is that if he is made a minister of trade and industry, or even finance, it would be said to be because of the Guptas,” Fikeni said.
He said he was almost certain that Molefe’s appointment as a minister would be linked to a reshuffle which would include Dlamini-Zuma’s return to the cabinet.
We always complain that MPs don’t have capacity; he has the capacity