Johannesburg – President Jacob Zuma is behind Brian Molefe’s return to Eskom to ensure that the controversial Gupta family continues to benefit from Eskom coal contracts, the SA Communist Party (SACP) said on Friday.
“President Zuma is a smart man, as you know he’s not in the country at the moment. He will distance himself from this Molefe matter and say he was not around when the appointment happened…but the bottom line is that Molefe was the president’s choice for minister of finance which we rejected,” Deputy secretary Solly Mapaila said at the sidelines of the SACP executive committee meeting in Johannesburg.
“It is quite clear that he [Zuma] is involved in this matter to make sure what ever happens to Molefe ultimately should be the enrichment of the Guptas and his son.”
Zuma’s son Duduzane is a business partner of the wealthy Gupta family who have interests in mining, media and ICT, among others.
SA Communist Party deputy secretary Solly Mapaila on Friday, said President Jacob Zuma was behind Brian Molefe's return to Eskom to ensure that the controversial Gupta family continues to benefit from Eskom coal contracts. Video: ANA
Mapaila said Molefe was “a good stuurboy [messenger boy] of the Guptas” who was being shielded by the Eskom.
“Brian Molefe has been part of a disruptive agenda, when he went to Parliament the intention was to make him minister of finance, when that did not work, he had to come back to full fill his mission to make sure Guptas continue to gain from coal supplies through the Tegeta company with the president’s son,” Mapaila said.
“It is clear that he will always be protected…he has been too good to them [Guptas], not only at Eskom, but even at Transnet, the PIC and so on. He is actually the good stuurboy of the Guptas. It is extremely shocking that the board would take such a decision.”
The board should reverse the decision to bring Molefe back to the power utility, he added.
Molefe and Eskom came under fire on Friday from political parties, unions, watchdog organisations and the governing African National Congress (ANC) over the board’s decision to bring him back as Eskom CEO. Opposition parties said they would launch a court challenge against Molefe to block him from taking over at Megawatt Park on Monday.
Molefe left Eskom last year after a scathing Public Protector report implicated him in dealings with the Gupta family. Molefe cited the need to clear his name and the need for good governance as reasons for his resignation.
On Friday, Public Enterprises Minister Lynne Brown said Molefe’s replacement at Eskom, Matshela Koko, has agreed to go on leave pending an investigation by a legal firm probing a possible conflict of interest in the awarding of R1 billion tenders to Impulse International.
His stepdaughter Koketso Choma was director of the company at the time the company clinched the tenders. Brown has endorsed Molefe’s return to Eskom where she said he would be serving the remainder of his contract.