Johannesburg – Matshela Koko, a former Eskom senior executive, testified at the Zondo Commission of Inquiry into State Capture and implicated then deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa in meddling in the affairs of the power utility.
Koko appeared for about six hours on Thursday evening, with his testimony wrapping up just before 10pm.
Koko told the commission he had been “criminalised, criticised, condemned and had been called names” for his part in alleged capture at the power utility, which he denied.
Citing documentary evidence he brought to the commission, he just Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo that the best years of all performance indicators for the power utility, were in fact the years of state capture between 2015 and 2017.
Koko accused investigators and evidence leaders of chasing targets and not following the evidence. He alleged the real capture of Eskom was through Glencore, who acquired Optimum and never repaid penalties worth over R1.4bn that was owed to Eskom.
“I listened to the NPA giving feedback to Parliament and I got extremely worried about what was said there. Hermione Cronje told Parliament we don’t want to get to the lowest hanging fruit, we know who we are targeting and we will get to them.
“I thought the prosecution was set up to follow the evidence.
“Consciously or unconsciously, your investigators are (also) following people and not the evidence. I can assure you if they follow evidence, different people will be sitting here, and not me,” said Koko.
Koko said during the years of state capture at Eskom, the power utility had seen the best performance since it won the global energy company of the year award in 2001.
He said Eskom had been on a downward spiral between 2002 and 2015 and there was an upward trajectory between 2015 and 2017, during the alleged years of capture.
From 2017, Eskom again went on a downward spiral, he said.
RAMAPHOSA
Aiming his dagger at Ramaphosa, Koko said the former deputy president had meddled in the affairs of the Eskom board by allegedly instructing it to remove him from the power utility.
He recalled he received a phone call from an official from the Department of Public Enterprises, whom he had also worked with at Eskom previously, and former deputy minister Ben Martins.
“He said to me the deputy president is going to issue a media statement dismissing you, but I said how can I be dismissed by the deputy president?
“He said there is going to be a new board that will find a reason to dismiss you but there is an instruction to dismiss you.
“Deputy minister Ben Martins got on the phone and he spoke in Setswana, he said, ‘Mr Koko let's not discuss this thing, this was a respectful call, we thought we owe you the decency because this statement is going to come out’,” said Koko.
He said shortly after the phone call while he was driving home, news of a new board being appointed and him being asked to resign was all over the news.
“Part of what you have been focusing on is interference. I am saying to you, the deputy president (Ramaphosa) fiddled with the board that has not even met and said go find a reason to dismiss Mr Koko.
“What’s more important, is that I get a feeling investigators are not following the evidence because that is an unlawful instruction and I will link it to Optimum (where Ramaphosa was chairperson between 2012 and 2014),” he said..
He won an appeal at the labour court in 2018, but chose to walk away.
Koko alleged Optimum had owed the power utility over R1.4bn in penalties, money which he said the parastatal never recouped from the company.
“They queried the coal price, refused to go to arbitration, became reasonable and unpalatable, concocted an agreement, and I argued it was unlawful,” he said.
He said when Glencore acquired Optimum, they still had to pay the R1.4bn that was owed to Eskom and they did not.
He said at the time, the Gupta-linked Tegeta, was not in the picture and only came in the picture two years later. He implored investigators to check minutes at the power utility.
“The real capture of Eskom was Glencore, and that is why we are being criminalised,” he said.
MATSHELA-MOLEFE
Koko said, alongside former Eskom chief executive officer Brian Molefe and former board chairperson Ben Ngubane, they would be absolved by history.
He referred to their time as the “Matshela-Molefe effect” and said under their reign, Eskom managed to reduce the diesel bill to keep the lights on from R12.5bn to R200m.
“They will say we postponed maintenance, I have brought the data.
“In 2016, the only executives that did the most maintenance was the team of Mr Molefe, my team and Dr Ngubane.
“That 13% we produced in terms of maintenance was the highest, the evidence is in the documents
“In my time, we have done the most maintenance. We have reduced diesel spend from R12.5bn to R200m. If you burn more than R200m of diesel, you are incompetent,” he said, adding Eskom spent R7.5bn on diesel in the 2019/20 financial year and R6.5bn in the 2018/19 financial year.
COAL
Koko also told the commission coal costs had increased on average by 15% per annum between 2007 and 2015, while inflation increased during the same period by 74%. This means by 2015, Eskom was paying by over 400% more for coal than they did in 2007.
“(At that rate) Eskom was bound to die,” he said.
“The only time coal cost reduced was in 2017 and 2018, in the time of Mr Molefe and Dr Ngubane. After we left in 2018, things went worse again,” he said.
“We are accused of state capture. I told all the CEOs that all we need to do is to meet the demand that the customers want.
“Do that without burning diesel. Drive down the primary energy cost, we mean coal, independent power producers and diesel.
“You have to be brutal with that because if you are not, you will die and they will survive,” he said.
Koko will return to the commission on December 11.
IOL