Cape Town – Multimillion-rand Eskom corruption and fraud accused Maphoko Kgomoeswana appeared in court on Thursday for the second time this week.
Today, he appeared at the Pretoria Regional Court on charges of tax evasion of R5 million. The court postponed the matter to 15 April for setting of a provisional date.
The tax fraud charges were discovered during the investigation of the controversial R745 million Eskom Kusile power station corruption case. He is charged with his company, Babinatlou Business Services CC, with evading income tax and company tax between 2016-18.
On Tuesday, Kgomoeswana and his three co-accused appeared in the Palm Ridge Specialised Commercial Crime Court in Johannesburg on charges of fraud, corruption, money laundering, offering unauthorised gratifications and receiving unauthorised gratification in connection with the Kusile case.
The Limpopo businessman and his company are accused of facilitating bribes in the fraud and corruption matter and he is out on R300 000 bail.
Former Eskom Group Executive for the Group Capital Division, Abram Masango, and former contracts manager France Hlakudi appeared in court with Kgomoeswana and Tubular Construction CEO Antonio Trindade. They are accused of committing offences between 2014-17 and are all out on bail of various amounts.
The matter was postponed to June 1 to allow the exchange of additional documents requested by the defence.
Another accused, Michael Lomas, former board chairperson of Tubular Construction, is living in the UK and the National Prosecuting Authority has formally requested he be extradited to stand trial with the four other accused in South Africa, said spokesperson Sindisiwe Twala.
Masango and Hlakudi are accused of receiving undue gratification of R30 million each from the contractors, Trindade and Lomas.
Twala said the other companies implicated in the case are Hlakudi Translation and Interpretation, Bon Service Telekom, Tubular Construction Projects, Abeyla Trading, Cosira Tubular Joint Venture (Pty) LTD.
Hlakudi also faces additional charges related to tax evasion of R30m. Hlakudi’s tax prosecution matter will proceed on March 3.
IOL