Parliament sends Eskom-involved ministers, CEOs to Zondo commission

Former home affairs minister Malusi Gigaba and former public enterprises minister Lynne Brown may have stepped down as MPs, but their woes over alleged corruption at Eskom are far from over.

This comes after parliament's public enterprises committee recommended that the commission of inquiry into state capture should summons them to explain their roles "as shareholder representatives during the period corruption and corporate capture flourished at Eskom".

Gigaba served as public enterprises minister between 2010 and 2014 with Brown holding that position from May 2014 until February 2018.

The committee's recommendation against Gigaba and Brown is contained in a hard-hitting report that was adopted by the public enterprises committee on Wednesday morning, after conducting an inquiry into Eskom corporate shenanigans over several months.

The committee has also recommended that national assembly speaker Baleka Mbete should "institute action against" all three Gupta brothers - Tony, Atul and Ajay - former president Jacob Zuma's son Duduzane and former SAA board chairperson Dudu Myeni, for repeatedly refusing to appear before the parliamentary committee during the inquiry.

"The committee further recommends to the national assembly that the judicial commission of inquiry into allegations of state capture headed by deputy chief justice Raymond Zondo should be requested to summons these individuals to appear before it," reads the report, that is due to be debated by the House sometime next week.

The committee has also recommended that former Eskom board chairpersons Ben Ngubane, his successor Zola Tsotsi as well as other former board members, along with former Eskom CEO Brian Molefe, CFO Anoj Singh, and executive for generation Matshela Koko should also be summonsed to appear before the Zondo commission after they were found to have "presented conflicting evidence".

"These include officials who failed, without sufficient cause, to answer fully and honestly all questions put to them under oath or affirmation."

The committee has also found that a set of executives and senior staff "appeared to have been part of a network that actively participated in irregular, corrupt and/or otherwise unlawful contract and processes" at Eskom.

The report has also recommended that lifestyle audits should be conducted on the implicated individuals.

"The list includes ministry advisors and public enterprises employees, Eskom non-executive board members, Eskom staff and executives, external persons who unduly influenced Eskom decisions, companies and persons who benefited unduly from contracts with Eskom."

Over and above this, the committee has recommended that fraud and corruption charges be instituted against implicated Eskom executives and companies that benefited from the alleged fraud and corruption to the tune of billions of rands.

The committee says fraud and corruption charges should be pursued by the police, the Hawks, the SIU, the NPA and other law enforcement agencies.

"Eskom must make applications in terms of section 162 of the companies act 71 of 2008 to have any board member who acted within the immediately preceding 24 months, and implicated in fraud, corruption and/or other unlawful behaviours, declared delinquent directors."

The committee has also proposed an extensive overhaul of procurement rules at Eskom and policies around its pension regime to prevent what happened with Molefe's controversial pension pay-out of R31m for an 18-month service.