Molefe says Madonsela never asked him about his phone records

Former Eskom CEO Brian Molefe says former public protector Thuli Madonsela never asked him about his phone records and didn't give enough information for him to respond.

Molefe appeared before the Public Enterprises committee's inquiry into state capture late on Tuesday.

Reading from a 20-page statement‚ he addressed Madonsela's notes in her state of capture report which places him in Saxonwold 19 times based on his phone records.

It also refers to several calls between Molefe and Ajay Gupta.

“The Public Protector fails to provide any other details about the phone calls. She does not provide the numbers nor the dates and times when the phone calls were made. It is therefore difficult to determine the veracity of her claim‚” he said.

Molefe also addressed his presence in Saxonwold‚ but did not mention the now notorious Saxonwold Shebeen he mentioned in a press conference in 2016.

“The Public Protector says I can be placed in the Saxonwold area 19 times. That is all she said. She does not provide context or even suggest what I may have been doing there‚” Molefe said.

He said “What I understand from enquiries made to a communications expert‚ is that any user of a cellphone within the area of coverage of a cell phone tower will be recorded as being in the area. This includes a user who is in transit through the coverage area of that tower‚” he said.

He said another paragraph in the public protector's report indicates that “the number of instances in which I was purportedly in the Saxonwold area only shows that I was there five times and not 19 times”.

These five times were all in August 2016.

Molefe said he had “thoroughly examined” his phone records since the release of the report.

The report “says that I had contact with Mr Atul Gupta. This is not true because the phone call from Mr Atul Gupta to myself was forwarded to my message box. There is no other record in my phone records that shows that I returned Mr Atul Gupta's call or that he ever tried to contact me again‚” Molefe said.