JOHANNESBURG - Suspended Eskom chief financial officer Anoj Singh drew the ire of Parliament after he submitted documents late for the inquiry into state capture with MPs accusing him of delaying tactics and undermining Parliament.
Singh was the first Eskom official to be sent packing and did not give evidence as his decision he left MPs fuming.
Singh was first notified of his appearance in July, and when he showed up yesterday he had submitted the 400-page document to the MPs the night before.
“We received the documents of 400 pages last night at 11pm. We have not prepared anything because you have made us not to prepare. We will not do justice as a committee, as the documents came late.
I want to register our disappointment as a committee, as we informed you in July. You have undermined the work of the committee,” said acting chairperson of the portfolio committee on public enterprises Zukiswa Rantho.
The late submission gave members of the committee little time to study his evidence before they could question him.
MPs said Singh was one of the officials whose name was linked to state capture at Eskom and they wanted to hear his side of the story.
Singh’s dramatic departure from Parliament came as acting chairman Zethembe Khoza defended some of the decisions of Eskom and blamed his predecessor Zola Tsotsi and suspended head of legal and compliance Suzanne Daniels on some of the decisions.
Khoza said Tsotsi was responsible for the suspension of four executives in March 2015 after his meeting with President Jacob Zuma at his presidential house in Durban.
Khoza also lashed out Daniels for misleading the board on the prepayment of R600 million to Tegeta.
He said the board believed the prepayment was for the purchase of coal and not to be given to the Guptas to buy Optimum mine.
“The board was shocked to read in the media what was meant to be a prepayment was converted into a guarantee,” said Khoza.
He said Daniels failed to inform the board about this as she was required to do so.
He said at no stage was the board aware of the Tegeta deal or the conversion of a prepayment to a guarantee.
Khoza also said The New Age contract of R43 million would have caused Eskom reputational damage because former acting chief executive Collin Matjila had signed it without authority.
They could not scrap the contract as it had no exit clause.
He said they could not deal with Matjila because he had left the power utility.
However, Khoza said the decision to extend the IT contract with T-Systems had saved Eskom R800m.
This was despite earlier evidence from some of the witnesses that T-Systems was not shortlisted for the tender, but the procurement process was scrapped and the contract rolled over.
Khoza said the contract with T-Systems would expire in April next year.
He said the procurement process was started before the appointment of the board in December 2014, and have no personal knowledge about it.