JOHANNESBURG - Former Eskom chief executive Brian Molefe said yesterday he was still waiting for an opportunity to clear his name after former public protector Thuli Madonsela implicated him in wrongdoing in her State of Capture report last year.
Molefe has disputed the report’s allegations that he exchanged numerous calls with Ajay Gupta.
He said Madonsela made disparaging remarks about him without affording him the opportunity to make representations.
“One of the very serious concerns I have expressed about the former public protector’s report is that she makes negative and damaging comments about me without making findings. As a result, I am unable to seek a judicial review. I am awaiting any opportunity to clear my name,” said Molefe, who has kept a low profile since his failed bid to return to Eskom.
Yesterday, he issued a statement in response to comments made by Madonsela this week about Molefe’s cellphone records. The records purportedly showed that Molefe was in the Saxonwold area 19 times between August 5 and November 17, 2015.
“This was a euphemism or code that I was in the Gupta family home,” said Molefe.
Phone records
Molefe said that, since the release of the report, he had examined his cellular records and had established that, in that period, he was in the Saxonwold area five times.
He said that on August 5, 2015, he was in the Saxonwold area and made one call and received nine others.
Asked to explain the nine calls, Molefe said: “These were phone calls made and received in the ordinary course of my duties as chief executive of Eskom and had nothing to do with the public protector’s investigation.”
Molefe also explained other calls made and received in the Saxonwold area between August 5 and August 28, 2015.
“Since the report was released, I have never been able to understand how the public protector mistook the number of calls made or received for the number of times I was in the Saxonwold area. Why the public protector elected to impute improper motive or conduct by innuendo out of the brief times that I was in the Saxonwold area, and why the diagram on page 123 of the State of Capture report is largely illegible,” said Molefe.
He was referring to a diagram in the report that depicted so-called instances of contact between Molefe, former chief executive of Oakbay Investments Nazeem Howa, Atul Gupta and Rajesh Kumar Gupta.
“I would have raised this and other discrepancies had Ms Madonsela afforded me an opportunity to present my side of the story, as I would have cautioned against the uncommon and curious use of the US date standard format on the diagrams on pages 123 and 124 of the report,” said Molefe.
He said the publication of the public protector’s report has had profound consequences.
“I have had to deal with the most important of them, especially the negative effects on my entire family, which includes my elderly parents. I have therefore not always had the time to respond to each and every allegation contained in the report. I have waited for a whole year for an appropriate forum in which to ventilate these issues. I continue to wait,” he said.