Eskom probe's usual suspects: Essa, Guptas and Duduzane
As an MPs' inquiry into the alleged capture of Eskom continued the quest to "connect the dots" of state capture this week, two patterns emerged.
The first is the role of Gupta lieutenant-general Salim Essa.
The second is the alleged presence of Duduzane Zuma and some of the Gupta brothers at two meetings with Deputy Minister of Public Enterprises Ben Martins.
Essa's name has emerged almost daily during the parliamentary inquiry by the portfolio committee on public enterprises. Several witnesses have characterised Essa as the Gupta networker-in-chief - using his connections to secure contracts, first for Regiments Capital and later for Trillian Capital Partners.
The modus operandi was always the same: the companies piggybacked as development partners on other companies, including McKinsey, which got the contracts.
This week, former Eskom finance director Tsholofelo Molefe said Essa was at a weekend meeting set up to quickly produce a new financial sustainability plan. Molefe said she had earlier prepared a plan but this had been rejected by then acting CEO Collin Matjila.He had claimed to know a company that had done similar work for other state-owned entities and was ready to assist.
That company turned out to be Regiments Capital.
In a second meeting the following day, Regiments' Eric Wood explained how "they partner with McKinsey on most contracts, they don't work alone". Molefe said Matjila had attempted to push her into signing a contract with Regiments, which could have ended up costing Eskom as much as half a billion rands.
Suzanne Daniels, suspended head of legal at Eskom, testified on the same day that she had met Essa on more than one occasion.
At one meeting, in March 2015, Essa told her the new Eskom board was about to suspend four people - among them Molefe and then CEO Tshediso Matona. Two days later they were suspended.
Then Daniels dropped a bombshell. Essa had invited her for coffee in July this year "Intrigued", she met him at Melrose Arch, where he led her to a townhouse where Ajay Gupta, Duduzane and Martins were present...
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