Brian Molefe breaks down while talking about his relationship with the Guptas during a media conference where Eskom released its interim financial results on November 03, 2016 in Johannesburg, South Africa. Molefe defended Eskom's deal with Tegeta, a Gupta owned company, saying that allegations levelled against him in Thuli Madonsela's "state capture" report are unfounded. Picture: Gallo Images
Public Enterprises Minister Lynne Brown, alongside Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba and Minister of Justice and Correctional Services Michael Masutha, announced today they would be rescinding Brian Molefe’s recent recent as the CEO of Eskom.
The announcement was made mere weeks after Molefe was controversially reinstated as the CEO of the electricity parastatal after quitting last year and then taking up a position in parliament as an MP.
The African National Congress’s national executive committee announced on Monday Molefe would be, or at least should be, removed as the CEO.
Earlier this month, Molefe claimed he had actually gone on leave from Eskom instead of resigning, despite having told the world that he was quitting in the wake of a damning public protector’s report that implicated him.
It later turned out that what he’d actually meant to say was that he’d supposedly accepted “early retirement”, despite being five years too young to qualify.
He returned to his old position at Eskom after barely five months as an MP, apparently because he realised he wasn’t going to get his hefty retirement lump sum payment of R30 million, and the CEO of Eskom is paid nearly a million a month instead of the paltry R100K MPs receive.
Needless to say, the ongoing Molefe saga has left social media increasingly puzzled.
How is it one can claim to step down from a position, take on a new role as an MP, be reinstated after taking retirement, treat it as unpaid leave, and then be fired after two weeks?
What’s next? No doubt it will soon be revealed Molefe is actually a paid agent of the media to ensure that headlines in South Africa remain interesting and we can still keep selling newspapers.
The truth is, though, you’d struggle to make any of this up. If you put it in a fiction novel, no one would publish it. They’d call it nonsense.
One user has suggested Molefe should become the next Kaizer Chiefs coach, though the more credible suggestion is that he’ll just go back to being an MP, perhaps with the excuse that he was just “on leave” from parliament so that he could go and dance at MegaWatt Park for a while.
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