I put Molefe's name forward for Eskom boss, says Ramaphosa
President Cyril Ramaphosa has told the commission of inquiry into state capture he recommended Brian Molefe as the CEO of Eskom to former president Jacob Zuma.
Ramaphosa was the deputy president at the time.
Zuma put him in charge of overseeing the turnaround of the power utility, which was plagued by many problems, including battling to keep the lights on.
”There were just too many initiatives all happening at the same time. We hd the war room on one side, we had the IMC (inter ministerial committee) on one side, we had what President was doing on one side to deal with the issue which you raise as a concern for me was to say ‘let’s close this war room’. Let’s have one entry point into Eskom.
“But one of the things I then did when I saw President Zuma was to say ‘let us appoint Brian Molefe’. I was getting frustrated as well. There was going to be an investigation into things and I thought we were messing things up.”
Commission chair, Justice Raymond Zondo, raised some questions about the recommendation.
“Two times, sources close to the Guptas said in advance where he was going to go. First, he was going to be the Group CEO of Transnet. And he did become the Group CEO of Transnet. Second, they said he was going to be the new boss of Eskom. And he did become the new boss of Eskom.
“So within this context one asks the question, where was this coming from? Miss Lynne Brown says she got the name from Mr Zuma. You said that you mentioned the name to Mr Zuma.”
Ramaphosa replied that his recommendation was largely based on the work Molefe had done at Treasury.
He said he didn't know that Molefe was linked to the Gupta family before putting his name forward for the job.
