DA to intervene in Molefe’s court bid to return to Eskom

The Democratic Alliance’s court case to stop Brian Molefe from returning to Eskom as the group chief executive officer (GCEO) has been postponed indefinitely pending Molefe’s bid in Labour Court to get his job back.

Molefe’s attorney, Barry Farber, told journalists all the parties had agreed the application must be postponed. He said the matter would be set down in the Court within the next few weeks.

Molefe’s court bid was on Monday postponed because Public Enterprises Minister Lynne Brown and Eskom had not yet filed their opposing affidavits.

Molefe resigned as Eskom’s CEO in November last year, but was on May 12 reappointed, with Brown saying it would be better for the fiscus if he returned to the post, rather than receive a pension payout of more than R30 million and an extra R7 million for early retirement.

Although Molefe briefly returned to his job at the parastatal, his return was cut short when the minister last week announced his appointment had been rescinded.

The DA has now taken steps to intervene as an interested party in Molefe’s court application.

The DA said in a statement an order would be obtained by agreement that Molefe would not arrive at the Eskom head office or at any of the Eskom sites for the purposes of performing any duties, subject to the completion of his Labour Court matter.

The DA said Molefe’s court case was based on the belief that his reappointment to Eskom on May 11, 2017, was a rational decision for the Eskom board to make, but the DA contended it was certainly not.

“We view Mr Molefe’s urgent Labour Court action as nothing more than desperation. No doubt Mr Molefe’s cronies at Saxonwold were very unhappy that their man-in-Eskom is on his way out.

“After damning allegations of Gupta capture, evidence of reckless governance and clear political agendas, we believe Mr Molefe is entirely inappropriate to serve as GCEO of Eskom.

“His return to Eskom was irrational, and it flew in the face of good governance at the power utility.

“The DA believes that South Africa deserves better than the cohort of pliable senior officials, installed by Jacob Zuma’s ANC, to plunder our state-owned entities for their own selfish gain, at public expense,” the DA said.