Days of Zondo: Blackmail, mistrust and system overrides: How Eskom bosses tried to sneak through a ‘bespoke’ $1.5bn deal By Jessica Bezuidenhout JessBezJourn
Neatly packaged as an “innovate” funding instrument, Huarong Energy Africa’s unsolicited bid was attractive as it promised to help Eskom raise $1.5-billion in funding for power plant refurbishments without the burden of government guarantees.
The commission earlier heard testimony by the Eskom Finance General Manager, Andre Pillay, about how: How Maritz signed a second deal for short-term finance with the company without board approval or the authority to do so. At this meeting, Singh allegedly pretended that he didn’t like the deal, something which, Pillay testified, seemed odd at the time as he had already pushed to sign the term sheet. The Huarong delegation appeared totally unperturbed by his reaction.
Shweni said he had hoped that the Reserve Bank could put a spanner in the wheel, but he conceded during testimony that he could have been more implicit in his attempt to “warn” the SARB. Yet, Eskom was looking to sign a $1.5-billion deal with Huarong and was seemingly prepared to pay the obscure Ideva the initial “signing fee” of R400-million.Personally, the issue of the signed term sheet that had a cancellation fee haunted me,” Shweni said.
But he said, “then, the only person I could trust was just myself. I don’t know the extent to which other people had different mandates”.
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