Johannesburg – The Zondo commission will continue to hear Eskom-related evidence on Tuesday.
Former Eskom board chairperson Dr Ben Ngubane is expected to take the stand.
On Monday former Eskom head of legal and compliance Suzanne Daniels told the commission that former Eskom chief financial officer Anoj Singh allegedly acted unilaterally by giving the Gupta-owned mine Tegeta Exploration and Resources more than R1.68 billion to purchase the Glencore-owned Optimum Coal Holdings in 2015.
It is believed that the former Eskom board had at the time taken a decision to offer a pre-purchase payment of coal to Optimum Coal Mine in a bid to assist it in dealing with its liability and liquidity challenges.
It is also thought that the deal was to ensure that the company continued to provide coal to the power utility but that Singh undermined the board’s decision in less than 24 hours.
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Daniels – who in her earlier testimony, told the commission that she took up employment with the power utility on October 1, 2015 as a company secretary – testified that Eskom board members voted on December 9, 2015, to allow the power utility to conduct a pre-purchase payment of coal to Optimum which was at the time experiencing liability and liquidity problems.
According to Daniels the R1.6bn was supposed to be paid to Optimum and not Tegeta.
The commission also heard that the Eskom’s Investment and Financial Committee (IFC) had also endorsed the pre-purchase payment on the grounds that it would allow Optimum Coal Mine to operate at a maximum level and pay its obligations to its creditors.
But Daniels told the commission that the next day, Singh allegedly undermined the board’s mandate.
“Mr Singh did not have the approval of the board when he used the R1.6bn as a guarantee to Tegeta. I realised the change after the Eskom Group treasury issued a memorandum that Eskom and Tegeta had a performance guarantee agreement. It was not a mandate by the board,” she said.
Ironically, the commission also heard that the R1.6bn guarantee to Tegeta on December 10, 2015 coincided with Glencore agreeing to sell Optimum Coal Holdings to Tegeta.
But according to evidence before the commission, Oakbay and Tegeta did not have money to purchase Optimum Coal Mine which was Eskom’s main supplier for coal.
Detailing version of the dubious events evidence leader advocate Pule Seleka – during Daniels’ testimony – told the commission how the deal was hatched saying that Optimum was under business rescue.
During that process, Eskom officials who include Daniels set up a memorandum in which the power utility was going pre-purchase coal from Optimum for a period of 12 months amounting to R1.6bn.
According to the heading of the memorandum – the prepayment of R1.6bn was initially supposed to be paid to Optimum but ended up with the Guptas-owned Tegeta Mine.
Seleka said Tegeta used the R1.6bn as guarantee to the business rescue practitioners that they had the financial muscle to purchase Optimum Coal Holdings.
This was confirmed by Daniels in her testimony but she blamed it all on former Eskom CEO Matshela Koko and Singh.
According to her, both Koko and Singh were the authors of the memorandum.
She denied former Eskom board chairperson Dr Ben Ngubane’s version that she initiated the Eskom’s board meeting including drafting the memorandum.
“I received a call from Dr Ngubane who said I must organise a board meeting for the drafting of the memorandum. He said I would get all the information from the executives (Koko and Singh). I acted on Dr Ngubane’s instruction. I drafted two versions of the memorandum. On each version, I handed them to the executives who made the changes.
“They made changes to the final version which allowed Eskom to purchase coal from Tegeta,” Daniels said.