The battle between former Eskom chief executive Brian Molefe and former Public Protector Advocate Thuli Madonsela took a turn for the ugly on Tuesday evening when Molefe questioned the latter's understanding of the law.
The brief verbal showdown between the two played itself out live on 24 hour news channel, Newzroom Afrika.
The station hosted Molefe on its flagship night programme titled “Your View” which was anchored by Thabo Mdluli, who was standing in for JJ Tabane.
Molefe kicked off the session by answering questions after Mdluli had asked him how he feels that he has become a person whom no one would like to employ.
Molefe blamed Madonsela for being behind the denting of his reputation and career.
He was referring to Madonsela’s state of capture report which effectively painted him as a corrupt Gupta stooge and which eventually forced him to resign from Eskom in November 2016.
Ranting, Molefe implied that Madonsela had an agenda against him hence she rushed the investigation in order to conclude it before leaving office in October 2016. The report was released on November 2, 2016 despite an urgent court application to block it.
Molefe also lambasted judges for refusing him to appeal a ruling that forced him to pay back a R30 million pension (he claims it’s around R7 million) and said their decision to shut him down was raising suspicions from his side.
Then came Madonsela who called into the programme to dispute Molefe’s version of events and the exchange took a rowdy turn with Molefe at some point saying to Madonsela: “I don’t know where you studied the law.”
Madonsela maintained that Molefe, as the CEO of Eskom was the first person to be called to respond to allegations made against him and the company. However, Madonsela later admitted during the exchange that she never contacted Molefe for him to explain why his cellphone placed him in the Saxonwold area at least more than ten times.
The issue of the cellphone records gave birth to the “Saxonworld shebeen” story which was vigorously carried by the Sunday Times until the paper retracted it in March 2017. This was after it was found by the press ombudsman that it did not report truthfully, accurately and fairly when it claimed that he was in the area to visit a shebeen.
%%%twitter https://twitter.com/hashtag/YourViewOn405?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#YourViewOn405
Part 1: https://t.co/6tRhSpT49Q
Part 2: https://t.co/35l2hkhyNq
Part 3: https://t.co/bkmIVKp8ir pic.twitter.com/igDwIihQNN
— Your View On 405 (@YourViewOn405)
Then Molefe was asked to by the programme’s host, Mdluli, to justify his presence there and he said the story of the shebeen was misrepresented. He said an Eskom colleague had said there is a shebeen in Saxonwold.