Days of Zondo: Tangled tale of resignations, coal mines and costly contracts By Jessica Bezuidenhout JessBezJourn
He said he had met the advisers on the first day, when Zwane was sworn in at the Union Buildings.He said he felt immediately marginalised and that the trio of advisers were now talking to staff in the department directly.
The Commission earlier heard testimony of how the DMR, during Zwane’s tenure, had added extra pressure on Glencore, the owner of Optimum Coal Mine, by slapping the company with several Section 54 notices, usually reserved for extremely serious safety breaches as they effectively shut down mining operations.
A few days before Mabaso instructed him to resign, Ramontja said he received a letter, signed by Eskom’s then head of generation, Matshela Koko. It effectively painted a dire picture to Ramontja, that three of Eskom’s power stations, Hendrina, Arnot and Komati, were at risk as a result. That the DMR had already requested an urgent meeting with the Competition Commission to plead and explain the urgency with which a sale of Optimum must be treated as it is a special case, given the consequences for the country. Again, Koko had made no such request.
The magic bullet in the draft response signed by Ramontja – again without such a request featuring in Koko’s letter – was for Eskom to put up a R600-million prepayment for coal to the “new owners” to help them honour the remainder of the coal supply deal with the parastatal. Although the department at times did resort to unconventional methods to save jobs, it had no business doing this, Ramontja said.
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