Eskom coal contracts review met with resistance: Treasury
National Treasury says its attempts to obtain information from Eskom regarding the power utility's controversial coal deal with a Gupta-owned coal firm has been met with continuous resistance.
This in reaction to a statement by Eskom on Sunday claiming it has been co-operating with the process of reviews of the coal contracts.
The Sunday Times also reported Treasury found that Eskom spent R30 million on coal it's unable to use.
According to Treasury, it has made several attempts since April to get information from Eskom about the alleged deal.
"Minister Pravin Gordhan escalated the matter to the Eskom Board Chair Mr Ngubane, raising concerns about advance payments made to Tegeta and failure to submit the information requested in relation to the matter. To date, not only has Eskom failed to honour its undertaking to submit comments to Treasury's report but it's chosen to ignore correspondence and put all forms of hindrances," Treasury said in a statement.
National Treasury says it has made several attempts to get information from Eskom, which includes:
- Sending a report to the Eskom Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Brian Molefe and the Chairperson of the Board Mr Ben Ngubane and a request for comment on it.
- Granting an extension that Eskom requested to provide the comments.
- A request for Eskom to submit a system generated list of payments made to Tegeta and invoices received from Tegeta for the period 1 September 2015 to 30 April 2016.
- A letter by National Treasury Director General Mr Lungisa Fuzile, requesting that Eskom withdraw its statement suggesting that 'all the Tegeta coal contracts with Eskom have been extensively audited by various agencies, including National Treasury,' whilst clearly that was not the case.
The statement adds that any company doing business with a state-owned-enterprise that has nothing to hide should be open to reviews of its business with the state as the public also has a right to know how taxpayers' money is spent.