By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
Power utility Eskom says that it had successfully recovered R30-million that it “unlawfully” paid its pension fund for the benefit of its disgraced former CEO, Brian Molefe.
The state-owned power utility paid the money to the Eskom Pension & Provident Fund (EPPF) in 2016.
According to EPPF rules, Eskom employees younger than 55 cannot take early retirement, at the time of his retirement Molefe was 50.
Apart from the age discrepancy, Molefe was employed as CEO on a fixed-term contract and therefore could not participate in the pension fund.
However, moving on false understandings of the rules, Molefe, who was appointed at Transnet before Eskom, transferred an amount of R4.3 million he had received from the Transnet retirement Fund to the EPPF. When Molefe resigned from Eskom, the utility questionably “purchased” a further 13 years of services amounting to R30.1 million, despite Molefe working for the utility for less than two years.
Upon retirement, Molefe chose to receive one-third of his pension benefits as a lump sum, all of which Molefe, together with the EPPF, has now been ordered to pay back.
“In July 2022, the north Gauteng high court reaffirmed a 2018 high court judgment that had reviewed and set aside a 2016 early retirement agreement between Molefe and Eskom,” the company said.
Judge Norman Davis of the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria set out what Molefe had to pay: R9 985 540, plus interest calculated from 31 October 2019.
Davis also thought it necessary to reconfirm Molefe’s obligation to “proverbially ‘pay back the money'”.
In his ruling, Davis questioned the logic of Molefe’s legal defence, which appeared to agree that he needed to pay back money to the pension fund. If this was the case, why had he not done so, Davis asked?
In terms of the agreement, Eskom paid to the EPPF approximately R30-million to boost Molefe’s early retirement pension payout.”
He quit Eskom under a cloud in November 2016 following a report by former public protector Thuli Madonsela into the influence of the Gupta family over the state and the power utility.
Molefe, who served two stints as Eskom’s CEO, was initially ordered to pay back his pension by the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria in January 2018 in a case brought by trade union Solidarity and the DA.
Molefe was arrested and appeared in court last week in connection with a multi-million rand corruption and fraud case linked to the procurement of 1 064 locomotives for Transnet in 2015. He and his three co-accused were released on R50 000 bail.