Johannesburg - Eskom board chair Jabu Mabuza says the board dissolved the tender bidding committee because it was deemed to be an unnecessary part of the power utility’s structure.
Mabuza took the stand at the Zondo commission on Friday and outlined the structure and plans the new Eskom board had put in place to try and clean up corruption allegations at the parastatal.
Mabuza said the tender board was dissolved in order to beef-up other sections of the executives which dealt with tenders.
He said this would help with accountability.
“What we have now done is to disband the process and change governance structures, we do not have a board tender committee since this year. What we did was increase the levels that executive committee could do and increased what the chief procurement officer will do and above a certain level the CEO will chair a committee that will deal with the information before it comes to the board,” said Mabuza.
The board chair also spoke about the charges laid against former Eskom executives who the company believed should be held accountable.
Charges have been laid with the Hawks and civil claims will be laid over the controversial Gupta-linked Tegeta coal deal.
Mabuza explained why certain members of the executive were charged through disciplinary hearings.
He said Sean Maritz who served as the interim CEO and chief information officer had been charged with signing payment to a Chinese company days before the new Eskom CEO and the new board were to take over in January 2018.
Maritz also failed to disclose this information to the board. Days after the discovery, Maritz was charged and he decided to resign days before was to face a disciplinary hearing.
The second charges related to now-former executives Matshela Koko and Susan Daniels. The two face the same charges of sharing confidential Eskom documents with an outside source through an email portal [email protected]
Mabuza said the board suspects that the email portal belonged to Salim Essa, who is a Gupta-linked businessman who has ties with Gupta-owned Tegeta and Trillion Capital.
Koko sent numerous emails, over a period of months back to 2015, to that email portal according to the investigation by the Eskom board.
Earlier Mabuza had told the inquiry that Eskom was the “theatre of state capture”.
The new board found millions in irregular expenditure from the state-owned entity.