READ: Zola Tsotsi’s explosive submission to parliament

READ THE FULL SUBMISSION BELOW:

I feel privileged to have been afforded the opportunity to appear before this committee so that I may make my contribution towards the unravelling of the issues that have contributed to current state of affairs at Eskom. The lapses in good corporate governance that have been occasioned by poor decision making have opened up the company to exploitation by unscrupulous rent seekers.

Those of us who have been and continue to be at the forefront of these events, including any who may have even peripheral knowledge thereof, have both the responsibility and moral obligation to voluntarily provide this knowledge to this Committee and the nation.

In accordance with the information I received that Eskom will make available any documentation I may require in support of my preparation for my appearance before this Committee, I regret to say that, despite numerous requests, Eskom did not avail me a single document. I have therefore had to rely on my memory of the pertinent events during my tenure at Eskom. This is unfortunate as it limits my ability to support the work of this committee. Be that as it may, I am here committed to presenting my recollections to the best of my ability.

1. The TNA Contract

1.1 On my arrival at Eskom in 2011, there was an existing TNA contract which was in progress. It was due to expire in about June 2014. At the time of its expiry, Collin Matjila was Acting Chief Executive.

1.2 Mr Matjila acceded to the request that the contract be renewed. In so doing, he failed to apply a provision in the delegation of authority that enjoined him to deal with sponsorship through a Committee that was put in place to deal with such matters thus by-passing the process and acting outside of his delegation of authority. The finance Director among others in his management team raised objections to his actions, contending that he used the wrong delegation of authority, and that the correct one would require him to make the decision on sponsorship as part of a Committee.

1.3 Mr Matjila disputed this position and proceeded to sign the contract. A whistle blower reported this action to the chairperson of the Audit and Risk Committee, stating that the acting CE had flouted procurement regulations. The ARC chairperson then brought the matter to the attention of the Board which duly delegated the ARC to institute an audit inquiry into the matter.

1.4 The ARC appointed Sizwe Ntsaluba Goboda who produced a report with a finding that Mr Matjila had interpreted his delegation of Authority incorrectly by using a wrong process to award the TNA contract, thereby infringing the provisions of the PFMA in that his authorised expenditure would then be irregular.

1.5 Mr Matjila then requested the Board to seek a legal opinion in this matter, to which the Board agreed.

1.6 The legal opinion was provided by the firm of Ledwaba Mazwai Attorneys who upheld the SNG findings that Mr Matjila had acted outside of his delegated authority and recommended that the Board discipline the Acting CE At this point, Mr Matjila was no longer with the company as the substantive CE Mr Matona was then in office, so the Board could not institute disciplinary action after the fact. Further, the lawyers advised that cancellation of the contract would result in expensive litigation and serious losses to the company. They also afforded the Board advice that meant accepting the contract, i.e, ratifying it meant accepting responsibility for Mr Matjila’s breach. After deliberations the Board accepted this advice as an irregular expenditure finding was too ghastly to contemplate. The board then resolved to let the contract run the remaining few months of the extension.

2. IT Procurement

2.1 I had established a practice of having regular weekly briefing meetings with the Chief Executive. At the time of the procurement of the IT services, Mr Matjila was Acting CE. It was in one of these meetings that I was, for the first time, informed that there was an IT services procurement process in progress to replace T- Systems contract.

2.2 I next learnt from the report of the Board Tender Committee (BTC) to the Board that the process had hit an impasse in that the negotiations with the preferred bidders were unsuccessful. Consequently the recommendation to the BTC was to extend the T-systems contract for a further 2 years.

2.3 To the best of my recollection, circumstances of the suspension of Mr Sal Laher were never raised at the Board, neither before nor after the suspension.

3. The Duvha Boiler

3.1 The procurement process of the Duvha Boiler was started after my time at Eskom. I therefore have no knowledge of this matter.

4. Suspension of 4 Executives

4.1 In order to do justice to the matter of the circumstances surrounding the suspension of Messrs Matona, Koko, Morokane and Molefe, please indulge me to sketch some of the events that occurred prior to this, which events take us to the time of the appointment of the new Board in early December 2014.

4.2 During the first 6 or so weeks the new Board members were busy with inductions and only started to get to grips with Eskom’s business towards the end of January 2015.

4.3 In the period from the arrival of Minister Brown at Public Enterprises Department in May 2014 till the new Board was in place, I had been trying to cultivate a working relationship with the Minister and aspired to achieve one similar to how I related with the previous Minister Gigaba.

4.4 It became patently clear to me that I was not succeeding in this regard when the Minister called me to a meeting a day or two before the State of the Nation Address (SONA) in February 2015. At this meeting, she stated as follows: “Chairman, I have received complaints from management and Board members that you are interfering in management. Please refrain from doing so, because if you don’t, I shall have to find someone else to do your job!” My response was “Minister, most Board members hardly know what I look like, let alone not having worked with me yet. As for management, if scrutinising their decisions and behaviour and calling them to account constitutes interference with management, then I will happily continue doing so. If you had acceded to my request that we have regular briefing sessions, even this meeting would not have been necessary” where upon the Minister responded by saying, “Chairman, you go and do what you have to do, I will go and do what I have to, there is no reason for you and I to talk about anything.” That is how the meeting ended.

4.5 The very same afternoon, I was approached by Tony Gupta (Tony) who requested that we meet. At the meeting, Tony told me “Chairman, you are not helping us with anything. We are the ones who put you in the position you are in. We are the ones who can take you out!” My response was “Do what you have to do, and let me carry on with the job that the Cabinet appointed me to do!” So ended that meeting.

4.6 It is at this time that I felt that some sinister clouds are gathering because the coincidence of the two events was not lost on me. Our first Board meeting was scheduled for 26 February 2015. On the evening of the eve of the meeting day, I received a phone call from the President of the Republic of South Africa (the President) who informed me that he had tried to get hold of the Minister and Deputy Minister to no avail. The President said he was able to locate the Acting Director General and asked if she has spoken to me, which at that point she had not. The President then informed me that the Board meeting will not be taking place and that the Acting DG will call me to ask me to postpone it. Shortly thereafter I received a call from the Acting DG to say that the Minister has asked that the meeting be postponed. When I asked for the reasons for the postponement, I was told that the Minister had not given any. I then had the postponement communicated to the Board members.

4.7 The totality of these events had generated some apprehension in me about things to come. Hardly a week later, I was called by Dudu Myeni. She said that I should avail myself for an audience with the President, and declined to discuss any details over the phone.

4.8 On or about 7 March 2015, I arrived at the Durban Presidential residence and was met by Dudu Myeni, her son Talent, and a certain Mr Nick Lennell, who was introduced to me as a lawyer. Ms Myeni then proceeded to outline the purpose of the meeting, namely, that the situation of Eskom’s financial stress and poor technical performance warrants that an inquiry into the company be instituted. She further elaborated that, in the course of the said enquiry, 3 executives namely, Acting CE Tsediso Matona, Group Executive for Group Capital Dan Marokane, and Group Executive for Commercial Matshela Koko, are to be suspended.

4.9 I found this matter altogether shocking and proceeded to question the need for suspending these executives as I saw this as a recipe for inducing instability in the company. She retorted that even the War Room was experiencing frustration with the decline in performance of the Company, and that the enquiry was essential. In her view, the suspension of the executives will not create difficulties because it will be explained that they are not accused of wrongdoing, but are being asked to allow space for the enquiry to proceed unencumbered by their presence.

4.10 Shortly hereafter the President entered. After some pleasantries, he requested to know what was up for discussion, whereupon Ms Myeni repeated what she had previously stated. The President then enquired if I knew who the executives are who were to be suspended, to which I responded that I would prefer that I consult the HR Rules of the company to check if there is provision for recusal rather than suspensions to achieve the same objective. Ms Myeni stated that Mr Lennell had assisted her with a similar situation at SAA and is being made available to assist. Mr Lennell then proposed that he draft a resolution for me to present to the Board setting out the rationale for the enquiry. The meeting ended.

4.11 I convened a Board meeting on 09 March 2015 where I presented the proposed resolution. The Board expressed its discomfort with this approach and instead proposed that the Minister be invited to engage on this matter with the Board.

4.12 The Board meeting with the Minister in attendance was convened on 11 March 2015.The Minister gave her support for the inquiry as well as for the suspensions of the 3 executives. The Board then resolved to proceed with both the inquiry and suspensions of the 3 executives. It also mandated the Audit and Risk Committee (ARC) to prepare the Terms of Reference for the inquiry, as well as the People and Governance Committee (P&G) to effect the suspensions.

4.13 At the inception of the P&G Committee meeting following the Board meeting, 2 astonishing events occurred. Firstly, Dr. Ben Ngubane stated that the name of the Financial Director must be added to the list of executives to be suspended. I immediately raised furious objections. For one, this executive’s name was not among the names approved by the Board. More importantly, suspending the FD is going to generate shock waves even internationally especially with our investors and lenders because the FD is seen as the custodian of their investments. Dr. Ngubane responded that the Minister had instructed that the FD’s name be added. I immediately called the Minister to raise my concerns and objection, but she rebuffed me.

4.14 The second astonishing event had to do with the appointment of the executives who had to act for those suspended. Hardly an hour after the end of the Board meeting which decided on the suspensions, Ms Chwayita Mabude was announcing the names in the P&G of the executives who were going to act. I immediately protested that nobody in the Committee, Ms Mabude included, other than myself, would have known which executives were suitable replacements. Once again Dr, Ngubane stated that these names came from the Minister.

4.15 Mr. Lennell assisted P&G in drafting the suspension letters, which were then individually handed out. I was at pains to assure all the executives that had there been any provision for their recusal other than suspension, we would have preferred to apply it, and also that their suspension does not mean they have been found guilty of any wrongdoing.

4.16 The following morning, 12 March 2015 at 10h00, I addressed a press conference wherein I announced the suspension of the 4 executives and the Company’s intention to institute an inquiry.

4.17 The afternoon of the same day l was to have the most unpleasant and humiliating experience in all my tenure as Chairman. The head of Eskom Treasury informed me that our investors and lenders from across the world will be calling in to ask for an explanation of the actions of suspending the executives. Indeed I was on line with around 52 individuals trying to defend what essentially was an indefensible position.

4.18 Hardly a week went by and l was faced with having to defend myself against accusations from several board members that l was not consulting the Board in the preparatory work on the inquiry. The Board engaged a law firm to trump up charges against me that l am not fit to be a director of the Company. On 23 March, in the dead of night, l was given an ultimatum by the Board to resign or be charged with lack of fitness to be a director. I resigned under duress.

4.19 The termination of the services of the executives who left Eskom occurred after l had left.

In conclusion, I would like to state here that corruption is the scourge that is denying our people the opportunity of a decent and prosperous livelihood. It is the duty of all of us to rid our society of this evil. I therefore applaud the initiative taken by this Honourable House to get to the bottom of maladministration at State Owned Enterprises. I wish the committee well in this endeavour.

Thank you.

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