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By Bernice Maune
Testimony from a senior figure at Eskom on the Zondo Commission has exposed how former SAA chair Dudu Myeni and his adviser, Nicholas Linell, were instrumental in establishing Eskom contracts for the Gupta families with the blessing of the former President Jacob Zuma.
In her testimony, given at the Zondo State Capture Commission, Zola Tsotsi explained how she had met Myeni and Linell at Zuma’s Nkandla residence in KwaZulu-Natal on March 8, 2015.
According to Tsotsi, Linell and Myeni gave him instructions on how to suspend four Eskom executives, including the chief executive officer, the chief financial officer and the chief financial officer. Myeni led the meeting that was attended by his son, Thalente, and a man named Jabu Maswanganyi. However, Tsotsi says she does not remember meeting Maswanganyi.
In Linell’s affidavit, he claims that Maswanganyi had a file containing confidential information consisting of Eskom’s financial statements, policies, and other documentation. She allegedly received this file from insiders at Eskom, who have yet to be identified.
Read also: Zondo Commission: the key protagonists of how Guptas captured Eskom (by firing Tshediso Matona)
Myeni and Linell’s roles have become clearer as, according to Linell’s affidavit, he details how he arranged the meetings between himself, Zuma, and Tsotsi.
“I attended a meeting in Durban on Sunday March 8, 2015. When I arrived at the residence, Mr. Tsotsi and Dudu Myeni were there. Also in attendance were Ms. Myeni’s son and another person introduced as Jabu. At the time I didn’t know anything about Jabu’s role in general. While Ms. Myeni’s son did not play an active role in the meeting, Jabu provided information on the state of Eskom, including allegations of wrongdoing and the reasons for the business failure, some of which were in the public domain.
Adv Seleka now reads from Mr. Nicholus Hugh Linnell’s Statement where he says he had attended the same meeting in Durban on Sunday March 8, 2015.#StateCaptureInquiry
– State Capture Commission (@StateCaptureCom) September 8, 2020
“The group at the meeting mentioned above discussed the planned research: how it would be carried out and what it would seek to achieve. After a period, we joined the president. The President was clearly familiar with the purpose of the meeting and we provided a summary of what was proposed … These included a number of established principles, ”Linell wrote in his affidavit.
However, in his statement, Mr. Linnell says that there was Ms. Myeni’s son and another person introduced as “Jabu” who, according to him, knew nothing about Jabu’s role at the time.#StateCaptureInquiry
– State Capture Commission (@StateCaptureCom) September 8, 2020
On the subject of meetings facilitated by Myeni to discuss the dismissal of Eskom officials, Tsotsi said that Myeni was simply passing on ideas that had been given to him.
“Although Miss Myeni is not the originator of this idea, now she is the exponent of it. She has communicated an idea that has been given to her. From that perspective, you can see that she is the person who starts the process. After all, we haven’t heard from the original architects of this, in my opinion, ”Tsotsi said.
Later in his testimony, the evidentiary leader refers to Linell’s affidavit in which he claims he was invited to meetings in the presidency. Linell admits that he had a prior employment relationship with Myeni at SAA. Describes the former president of SAA as a client of yours. Zuma was apparently concerned about Eskom’s condition and relied on Myeni as his assistant along with Linell to orchestrate an investigation into the utility.
“It is strange that the president has problems that he is discussing with the president of SAA. He is not discussing them with the chairman of the Eskom board, ”said President Raymond Zondo.
“Actually, it’s weird,” Tsotsi added.
“The president of SAA is coordinating meetings to discuss various issues. He (Zuma) calls Mr. Linell and calls you. At the meeting, she (Myeni) is the one speaking at the meeting, ”Zondo said.
Linell will assist the commission to expand the work he did for SAA and Eskom. It is unclear how the former Zimbabwean lawyer met Myeni, but according to City Press, Myeni appointed him with R167,000 a month to advise her on the company’s corporate and legal matters. He would eventually write press releases, review forensic and legal reports, and give his opinion on cases involving officials who were on suspension.
Linell enjoyed a close relationship with Myeni, and he was often the only person who could call her directly and receive direct instructions from her, a source told City Press. Also, it seems that Linell agreed to ‘fix’ Eskom along with Myeni by taking orders from the Guptas and implementing this up to Tsotsi. This was done to put Gupta’s affiliate members on the Eskom board to approve contracts worth billions in which they had stakes and sometimes owned.
In an interview with BizNews founder Alec Hogg in 2017, forensic investigator Paul O’Sullivan shed more light on Linell and Myeni’s involvement in state entities. Below is an excerpt. Read the full interview here.
Alec Hogg: The interesting part of all this, as you say, is that there is now a “smoking gun”, but just the same, how do we know that Zola Tsotsi, the president, is telling the truth? That has to be the crux of all this.
Paul O’Sullivan: Now, Nick Linnell is Dudu Myeni’s ‘Mr Fix-It’. Every time she gets in trouble, Nick Linnell has been running around trying to put out fires and that includes on the Water Board in Richards Bay, at SA Airways, and as we now know, here he has been helping her intimidate the president of Eskom and him. achievement. It makes it clear that Nick Linnell actually wrote the suspension letters, which she then delivered to those three individuals.
You say he is not a lawyer. What exactly is he, besides being a Mr Fix-It?
He was a lawyer in Zimbabwe, at that time he was Rhodesia and in fact he was a magistrate in Rhodesia.
So do you have any kind of legal training?
Oh yeah, he absolutely has legal training, but he’s not registered with the Law Society. I’ve checked it and it’s not registered so you shouldn’t go to meetings and refer to yourself as a lawyer. Now the other point of concern is this. She hired his services while running the Water Board and paid for her services from that Water Board. She then hired her services and paid her R167,000 per month without any employment contract and without any procurement process being followed at SA Airways. What did she do? She worked alongside Dudu Myeni instructing a law firm, ENSafrica, to bring false charges against then-SA Airways CEO Monwabisi Kalawe. In fact, the law firm didn’t just do that. They went after all the executives I wanted to get out of SA Airways so they could get their hands dirty in the SA Airways bidding processes. As you know, OUTA filed an application to prevent me from paying 256 million rand to BnP Capital last year and it goes on and on.
Read also: Paul O’Sullivan – Former Eskom Chairman Tsotsi Provides State Capture “Smoking Gun”
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