Brown tells Eskom to release coal report

Public Enterprises Minister Lynne Brown intervenes amid public row between the Treasury and Eskom.

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Cape Town - Minister of Public Enterprises Lynne Brown said today she had instructed energy parastatal Eskom to hand over a 172-page document, part of a probe by the National Treasury into the company’s coal contracts.

This follows accusations by the National Treasury that Eskom had refused to co-operate with investigations into its coal procurement from Gupta-owned mining firm, Tegeta Exploration.

Brown spoke to political analyst Eusebius McKaiser on Talk Radio 702 this morning, saying she had instructed the utility to hand over the documents but that she could not provide any real comment on the controversial coal contract until the probe was concluded.

Brown said: “The crisis was brought to the fore a week ago. I knew about (the) investigation when it started... I have asked Eskom to release the 172-page document to National Treasury.”

The Sunday Times reported the Treasury investigation showed that Eskom paid more than R130 million to a mining company owned by the Gupta family for coal the power utility could not use.

But Brown rejected these claims today, saying no real evidence had been presented to her board of directors that proved such a contract existed. She did admit, however, that she would not be aware if coal was bought that was unusable to the parastatal, as the board made such decisions.

“I would not be able to check.”

Eskom spokesman, Kulu Phasiwe, said all relevant documentation would be issued to the Treasury before the end of September.

It was reported over the weekend Eskom was co-operating with the Treasury and that Tegeta had threatened to seek an urgent interdict to prevent the Treasury from releasing a report on Eskom contracts.

But the Treasury said in a statement yesterday: “The National Treasury is surprised by media reports of Tegeta warning and threatening to interdict the department should it release a report into its investigation of Eskom’s coal contracts.

“The National Treasury would like to categorically state that its efforts have met resistance. Since April, the National Treasury has made several attempts to get information from Eskom.”

The contracts are reportedly worth R400m a year for a period of 10 years.

“To date, not only has Eskom failed to honour its undertaking to submit comments to Treasury’s report, but it chose to ignore correspondence and put up all forms of hindrances,” the Treasury added.

At the weekend, Oakbay Investments said Tegeta had done nothing wrong in the securing of the coal contracts. The company said everything had been done as required by law. Oakbay said when the Treasury wanted to release the report, Tegeta offered to co-operate.

Meanwhile, the Cape Chamber of Commerce and Industry has warned that the enormous cost overruns on two new power stations meant sharp increases in future electricity tariffs.

One kWh currently costs 83 percent, but this figure will increase each year until 2018 after the National Energy Regulator of SA approved the average increase, said Phasiwe.

* With additional reporting by Staff Reporters

gadeeja.abbas@inl.co.za

CAPE ARGUS