LIVE: Guptas ordered Brown to stop Koko suspension – Qoma

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Yolandi Groenewald

2017-11-14 09:38

After suspended Eskom head of legal Suzanne Daniels explosive testimony last week, Eskom board spokesperson Khulani Qoma told parliament’s hearing into state capture at Eskom that suspended executive Matshela Koko had lied on television.

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Guptas ordered Brown to stop Koko suspension – Eskom board spokesperson

Eskom board spokesperson Khulani Qoma said acting
Eskom chairperson Zethembe Khoza told him that Public Enterprises Minister
Lynne Brown was captured and reported to the Guptas.

He told the Public Enterprises inquiry

in Parliament that suspended CFO Anoj Singh and suspended acting CEO Matshela Koko were sheltered
by the minister because they in turn reported to the Guptas.

Qoma said Khoza called one of the “G-brothers” informing him
that former Eskom chair Ben Ngubane was about to suspend Koko.

The Guptas then
phoned the minister, who ordered Ngubane not to suspended Koko.  This then occurred.




Tainted individuals should have been kept at arms’ length

Eskom board spokesperson Khulani Qoma earlier wrote a scathing report in June to the Eskom board where he accused the board of burying evidence against compromised senior executives and ignoring mismanagement at the expense of the utility.

Qoma  report said Eskom’s corporate arrogance was costing South African, and wanred that Brian Molefe and Matshela Koko should not be allowed close to the utility. Qoma almost lost his job as a result of his revelations in the report.

He also hit out in the report at Koko for lying about the Gupta-linked Tegeta deal, adding that Koko, suspended CFO Anoj Singh and ex-CEO Molefe were tainted executives.  

On Tuesday he told lawmakers that Molefe’s return to Eskom in early January was “devastating for Eskom.”

“It tainted the image of Eskom,” he said.





Eskom board expected to be in the limelight

The public enterprises committee’s inquiry into state capture at Eskom, will resume on Tuesday morning with witnesses expected to detail the Eskom’s board role into state capture.

Last week suspended legal head of Eskom Suzanne Daniels told Parliament about how Ajay Gupta and Gupta-associate Salim Essa on separate occasions tried to influence decisions related to executives at the power utility. 

READ:  #StateCapture: Daniels opens up about Eskom’s ‘Gupta-run’ board

She caused a stir when she explained how she first met Ajay Gupta, one of the three Gupta brothers, in mid-2017.

Daniels told the committee she had been asked to meet with Essa, a friend and close business associate of the Gupta family, at Melrose Arch in Johannesburg on July 29, 2017. She said that, after meeting him at the reception area of the African Pride Hotel, they together walked to a set of nearby apartment blocks.

“We went into one of those apartments. As we walked into the lounge area there were four people, of which I was introduced to Ajay Gupta, Duduzane Zuma, Deputy Minister [of Public enterprises] Ben Martins and a Chinese lady whose name I could not remember,” she said.

Daniels said Ajay Gupta was wearing a grey tracksuit, a T-shirt and no shoes. “My view is he looked worse than if he was at a shebeen,” she said. “The purpose of the discussion was around the process of the [former Eskom CEO Brian] Molefe court proceedings. Mr Gupta wanted to know how far they were.”



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