Maroga's sacking unlawful

The termination of Former Eskom CEO Jacob Maroga's employment contract was found to be unlawful by the High Court in Johannesburg, The Sunday Independent reports.

The Eskom board fired Maroga in November 2009 after he denied that he had offered to resign from the public utility.

"This, in my view, is unlawful termination of Mr Maroga's employment contract," said Judge Moroa Tsoka in his judgement.

Tsoka found that Maroga had not been allowed to respond to allegations of poor performance, a right that was detailed in his contract.

"In fact, the evidence on record reveals that the two acts of poor performance, namely failure to produce a funding model to save Eskom money and to renegotiate Eskom's long-term contracts, cannot be true as, at the end of December 2009, Eskom [had] saved R10bn due to Mr Maroga's actions," read the judgement.

"With regards to Mr Maroga's alleged failure to renegotiate the long-term contracts, there was no certainty that this would be acceptable to other parties. In any event, it is common cause that this would be a costly exercise."

Despite the finding that his termination was illegal, Tsoka ruled against Maroga's bid to be reinstated as Eskom CEO and to prevent the board from appointing a successor.

He reasoned that the relationship between Maroga and the board had irretrievably broken down.

Further, Tsoka said that it was in the public interest and good corporate governance for there to be certainty over the leadership of Eskom, the newspaper reported.