Staff Reporter.
Former Eskom chief executive Brian Molefe again took a swipe at President Cyril Ramaphosa at the commission of inquiry into state capture.
Molefe, who resumed giving evidence at the commission on Tuesday, took issue with evidence leader Pule Seleka not mentioning the claims he made against Ramaphosa during his recap of his testimony earlier this year.
“I hope that it is not being swept under the carpet,” Molefe complained.
In January, the former Transnet and Public Investment Corporation chief executive accused Ramaphosa of using his political influence to assist mining multinational Glencore, with which the president owned Optimum Coal Mine, of which he was chairperson until he became ex-president Jacob Zuma’s deputy in May 2014.
Molefe suggested that his allegations against Ramaphosa were being swept under the carpet during Seleka’s recap of his evidence.
He expressed his concerns that it was not being mentioned by Seleka that he has previously stated that Glencore sold shares to Ramaphosa because they wanted to use him to negotiate a higher price in its coal contracts with the power utility.
According to Molefe, in 2013 Optimum Coal Mine issued a hardship notice and initiated a hardship claim against Eskom despite the fact that the power utility was experiencing its own hardships and experiencing load shedding.
“At the time of the request to increase the price at which Optimum Coal Mine was supplying coal to the Hendrina power station from R142 to R442 per tonne, the shareholders of Optimum Coal Mine were, among others, Purito BV (owned by Glencore), with a shareholding of 67.58%, and Lexshell 849 (owned by Ramaphosa) with a shareholding of 9.64%,” Molefe stated.
He said Ramaphosa was the chairperson of Optimum Coal at the time of the initiation of the hardship claim.
However, commission chairperson Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo assured Molefe that nothing was being swept under the carpet.
Molefe also said that Glencore was not forced to sell the Optimum coal mine but it did so of its own accord.
He said that he scrapped an agreement to increase prices for purchasing coal from the mine, which would’ve saved it.
The Eskom board approved the change of a R1.68 billion pre-payment to Glencore into a guarantee for Tegeta and Tegeta used that guarantee to take over the mine.
Molefe said that what Optimum wanted was preposterous and illegal and his fiduciary duty was to Eskom.
But he said that Eskom had nothing to do with the change of ownership of the mine.
“Because I refused to sign a R150 million deal, I refused to be bullied into acting against the interests. They sold the mine to the group, I didn’t make them sell it.”
Molefe said that Optimum told Eskom that if they didn’t agree to the price increase it would stop supplying coal but he knew it was a bluff and he wasn’t fazed.