The Trillian-dollar question is ...

21 May 2017 - 02:00 By Peter Bruce
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It's official. Not only is Eskom an electricity monopoly. It is also a bank, and a very innovative one.

Thanks to the reporting of the amaBhungane team of investigative journalists, we now know that Eskom has become what might best be called a development bank, alongside the actual Development Bank, the Industrial Development Corporation and the other rats and mice of the state's "banking" agencies.

AmaBhungane did two huge stories this week. They would have been written and planned long before the shock news that Brian Molefe, a backbench ANC MP, was to return to his old job as CEO of Eskom on Monday.

The first of the pieces appeared on Tuesday. Molefe would have taken it personally.

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That story detailed how Molefe and Eskom chairman Ben Ngubane tried to pressure former mineral resources minister Ngoako Ramatlhodi into suspending all Glencore's mining licences in South Africa pending payment of a R2.1-billion fine for supplying Eskom's Hendrina power station with poor-quality coal from its Optimum mine. Ramatlhodi was being asked to blackmail Glencore. He declined and was fired.

As Ramatlhodi emerged from President Jacob Zuma's office in the Union Buildings, with orders to leave mineral resources, he bumped into Zuma's son and Gupta family business partner (or business prisoner?) Duduzane, and a man called Mosebenzi Zwane, waiting outside. Duduzane had kindly agreed to introduce Zwane to his dad.

We know much of the story since then. Zwane, now minister of mineral resources, travelled to Switzerland a few weeks later to meet with Glencore, the Guptas and Duduzane to "negotiate" the transfer of Optimum to the Guptas and Duduzane.

Eskom tried to refute Ramatlhodi's tale. "It makes no sense that a mere chairman and group chief executive can exert pressure on a sitting minister in an effort to subordinate him to their will," a spokesman said.

But all Ngubane had to do was to tell Duduzane what had happened and the rest would've been a doddle.

The second story appeared two days later. It detailed how Eskom had paid R419-million to a company called Trillian, run by a Gupta intimate, Salim Essa.

Not only have both companies denied that any contract existed between them (dumb - it makes things worse) but Public Enterprises Minister Lynne Brown, a muppet the Zuptas use to enrich themselves, denied in parliament that Eskom and Trillian were doing business with each other. In other words, she lied.

The problem was that the Guptas didn't have the money to pay R2-billion for Optimum, let alone the R2.1-billion fine imposed on the mine by Molefe. They never spend their own money anyway. But Molefe saw a fix. Or perhaps it was Essa, who people say is the brain behind the Zuptas.

Trillian generated invoices of R30.7-million, R113.3-million, R122.2-million and R152.8-million to Eskom.

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AmaBhungane discovered that the CEO of Tegeta, the Gupta vehicle used to "buy" Optimum, called Molefe 11 times in the three days before the April 14 deadline last year to pay for Optimum.

They were R600-million short, even though they had by then cleaned out the Optimum mine's rehabilitation fund.

On April 11, a late-night Eskom tender committee meeting decided to pay the Guptas R659-million as a forward payment for coal from Optimum, whose quality seems suddenly to have improved.

In fact, the money was used by the Zuptas to pay for the mine itself. The Treasury, under Pravin Gordhan, ordered that the money be treated as a loan or paid back by the Eskom directors who approved it. Then he was fired. Will Malusi Gigaba hold that line?

The question is whether the money, or part of it, paid by Eskom to Trillian, was also used to help the Zuptas buy Optimum. Former public protector Thuli Madonsela said Trillian had contributed R235-million to the Optimum acquisition.

According to amaBhungane, April and August invoices Trillian sent to Eskom, stripped of VAT, total R233-million - R2-million short of what Madonsela said Trillian had paid towards the Optimum purchase consideration.

Banking can be hard work. So much to do! So much to hide. So many lies to remember.

• A "whistleblower" at Trillian is being bullied by the company over her testimony to Madonsela that she was forced to invoice Eskom for millions for work that hadn't been done. If you have spare cash or run a security company, help her.

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