If “ke le batla (I want to deal with you) one by one” was a person, it would be former Eskom boss Matshela Koko.
In his mission to tackle “those who are part of the Koko hunt”, on Tuesday he placed former Eskom legal and compliance and company secretary Suzanne Daniels at the crime scene.
Daniels has been hailed as among the leading former Eskom employees who blew the lid on state capture and corruption at the power utility. In her evidence, she fingered Koko for allegedly being one of the company’s executives who championed the state capture project for the Gupta family.
Koko on Tuesday attempted to turn the tables on Daniels, armed with documents and audio recordings, claiming she was in fact a state capture enabler.
For starters, Koko told the inquiry it was Daniels who introduced him to the notorious info-portal e-mail address which allegedly belonged to alleged Gupta foot soldier Salim Essa.
To prove this, Koko provided the inquiry with an e-mail sent to him by Daniels in which the info-portal was copied.
Koko called for further imaging of Daniels’ Eskom e-mails, a request the inquiry chairperson, deputy chief justice Raymond Zondo, immediately granted, calling for a meeting between Koko and IT specialists working for the inquiry.
The inquiry moved to question Koko on the master services agreement (MSA) Eskom entered into, leading to the payment of R1.6bn to McKinsey and Gupta-linked Trillian at R1bn and R600m respectively.
Koko told the inquiry he was not involved in the management of the contract nor its settlement and payments thereof.
In fact, he said, he was the one who refused to sign a request from Daniels, Eskom chief procurement officer Edwin Mabelane and Eskom executive Prish Govender for the final payments to the two companies in 2017 when he was acting Eskom executive.
The reason I went for the audio is again because of these people who come here to mislead you. It saddens me that when that happens, unless I have an audio or document to prove them wrong, I look the corrupt party.
— Former Eskom boss Matshela Koko
The events leading to final payments to McKinsey and Trillian started in February 2015.
“Then comes the meeting of February 8 2017, there was not even a submission there. Mr Prish Govender and Miss Suzanne Daniels went to present the final settlement of R460m [to McKinsey]. I have recordings of that BTC [board tender committee] meeting. I gave them to my lawyers to send them to you,” said Koko.
“The reason I went for the audio is again because of these people who come here to mislead you. It saddens me that when that happens, unless I have an audio or document to prove them wrong, I look the corrupt party.
“I never took part in these negotiations, including the conclusions of its payments. The person making allegations against me is actually the one who made these submissions [to the BTC], which is Miss Daniels.”
After Daniels and Govender presented at the BTC on February 8, said Koko, Daniels sent him a memo which he provided to the inquiry.
The document was prepared on February 17, he said, but was received by his office five days later.
On February 25, Koko attended to the memo but refused to sign it since it stated there was payment to Trillian as subcontracted BEE partners, something against Eskom policy.
For that and despite the memo having been “supported” by Mabelane and Govender, Koko refused to sign it.
An invoice for R176m from Trillian was received by Eskom on February 21 and paid a day later, only for Koko’s approval to be sought on February 23.
“Chairperson, the point I am making to you is that an invoice comes in on the 21st and gets paid on the 22nd, and on the 23rd I receive a memo saying give us permission to pay what had already been paid without being told that it was paid.
“I never had contact with Mr Mabelane and Mr Govender about these invoices but I had contact with Miss Daniels, but she is the one who goes around telling people how corrupt I was.”
Koko said a simple revisiting of Eskom’s document audit trail system would reveal all the people who were involved in the payments to McKinsey and Trillian, and he is not one of those people.
Koko was determined to “expose the Koko hunt” when his testimony was rested after 6pm, just before he was about to be quizzed about alleged financing of his Dubai trip by Essa. He protested: “Chairperson, at least let us finish this part that we are dealing with, I beg you. I need the trip to be dealt with now.”
Despite his protest, the inquiry adjourned on the understanding Koko will be allocated a new date to continue testifying.
