Myeni didn’t instruct board, inquiry told

A FORMER Eskom board member has disputed testimony given by the previous board’s chairperson, Zola Tsotsi.

Venete Klein, who took the stand at the Commission of Inquiry into State Capture, poured cold water on Tsotsi’s version of events.

The ex-chairperson earlier this week said that the board had turned against him leading up to his resignation at the end of March 2015. Tsotsi had allegedly attended a meeting at former president Jacob Zuma’s residence in Durban, chaired by former SAA board chairperson Dudu Myeni.

She told Tsotsi that an external inquiry into Eskom had to be conducted and that three executives had to be suspended. Zuma later joined the meeting and told Tsotsi to take this resolution to Eskom’s board. A meeting took place where Tsotsi asked the board to vote on the resolution.

The members asked for more time and wanted then public enterprises minister Lynne Brown to address them.

At another meeting, Tsotsi said, he’d told the inquiry of Brown’s instructions. Tsotsi said Brown told him that the chief financial officer had to be included in the suspension. Tsotsi said that he was reluctant to push for a suspension of the executives.

But Klein said Brown made it clear that she could not “instruct” the board. “My recollection was the minister said she would support whatever the board agreed to,” Klein testified.

When presented with the affidavits from Eskom stating that Brown did mention the need to suspend all four executives, Klein conceded that her version may not be correct.

She said she supported the need for an inquiry into Eskom because of the motivations provided by Tsotsi. Earlier, Klein was asked about her tenure on what was labelled a “Gupta board”. She said she took exception to this.