Singh linked to Gupta payments

NEW evidence links Eskom chief financial officer Anoj Singh directly to payments of hundreds of millions of rands to a Guptalinked company that the power utility denied knowing about.

Times Media has also unearthed evidence of a number of trips by Singh to Dubai on the Guptas’ tab at the time of major deals between Gupta entities and parastatals he worked for.

Eskom last week finally admitted to paying R495-million to Trillian Capital Partners, owned by Gupta lieutenant Salim Essa.

Eskom’s top executives – including Singh – claimed their previous denials had been because of confusion about Trillian’s relationship with the power utility.

But Times Media has obtained evidence from a whistleblower showing that Singh had direct knowledge of the Trillian payments as early as February last year – nearly two months before the first payment of R30.6-million was made.

E-mails show Singh was sent the first Trillian invoice, itemised for “Eskom corporate plan deliverable”, on February 11 last year. It was sent by Trillian chief financial officer Tebogo Le Ballo, who confirmed he had sent it but would not say more.

The invoice was resent on April 14 last year and paid the same day by Eskom.

Singh’s stints as chief financial officer at Transnet and now Eskom have coincided with Gupta family entities netting deals worth billions.

There is evidence that Singh was in Dubai on December 17 to 24 in 2015 and stayed at the Oberoi hotel on the Gupta tab.

This coincided with Trillian becoming the “supplier development partner” for business consultancy McKinsey, which was working for Eskom.

McKinsey last week denied that it had a contract with Trillian.

Times Media has evidence Singh made four other trips to Dubai between June 6 2014 and February 26 2015.

On one he was with Rajesh “Tony” Gupta and stayed at the Oberoi. The bill was paid by Gupta company Sahara.

Singh said he was preparing a tell-all document for the Eskom board on the allegations he was confronted with at last week’s briefing.

Eskom spokesman Khulu Phasiwe said yesterday Singh had briefed the board and executive on Trillian “prior to the legal and forensic investigation being announced”.

Singh was Transnet group chief financial officer when a R1.8-billion contract was awarded to telecoms company Neotel which resulted in at least R36-million in payments to Gupta-linked company Homix.

He was also at Transnet when a deal for 1 064 locomotives was awarded to, among others, China South Rail. Leaked e-mails show the Guptas scored R5.3-billion from that deal as an “advisory fee”.

When Singh was Eskom group chief financial officer, the Guptas secured coal supply and transport contracts through their company Tegeta Resources worth at least R12-billion.