Eskom passes the buck to Brown over Molefe’s unfair dismissal case

Eskom will not oppose a court challenge by its former CEO Brian Molefe to have his dismissal from the state power utility declared unlawful and void.

eNCA reported on Thursday Eskom had passed the buck over the unfair dismissal case to Public Enterprise Minister Lynne Brown, according to court papers.

Molefe approached the Labour Court in Johannesburg last month on an urgent basis after the Eskom board rescinded his controversial reappointment as group chief executive, as directed by Brown.

He returned to the post following his resignation from Eskom in November last year after being implicated in the public protector’s State of Capture report, to much public outcry.

Molefe was then deployed to Parliament as an ANC MP in February, fuelling public speculation that he would be appointed finance minister by President Jacob Zuma. But Malusi Gigaba was instead appointed to replace Pravin Gordhan in a midnight Cabinet reshuffle in March enforced by Zuma.

The Eskom board and Molefe have maintained that he had not resigned but took early retirement, despite Brown initially announcing to the nation Molefe had resigned as CEO.

On Monday, Eskom board chairman Ben Ngubane abruptly resigned from the parastatal amid a string of corruption allegations stemming from the leaked Gupta emails, as well as an upcoming parliamentary inquiry into malfeasance at the utility.

Ngubane said he resigned for personal reasons and had nothing to fear.

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