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Former Eskom board chairman Ben Ngubane testifies before the Zondo Commission. Ngubane said Salim Essa approached him at a restaurant in 2013. Essa joined Ngubane’s company, Gade Oil and Gas, so the two could partner in a lucrative oil business. (Photo by Gallo Images / Luba Lesolle)
The test leader in the State Capture Investigation pulled the strings of Dr. Ben Ngubane when he asked the former chairman of the Eskom board about his ties to the Gupta family, Oakbay Investments CEO Nazeem Howa, and Gupta’s lieutenant, Salim Essa.
Former Eskom board chair Dr. Ben Ngubane insists he was not vulnerable to Lieutenant Gupta Salim Essamanipulation in 2015, despite the fact that years before the couple had worked on a planned oil deal in the Central African Republic (CAR).
Ngubane returned to the State Capture Investigation on Tuesday, October 13. He got previously testified about his association with Essa years before joining Eskom.
Echoing what he said Parliament’s Public Companies Commission In 2018, Ngubane told the chairman of the investigation, Supreme Court Vice President Raymond Zondo, that Essa approached him at a restaurant in 2013. Essa joined Ngubane’s company, Gade Oil and Gas, so that the two they could partner in a lucrative oil deal.
“It was a business relationship,” Ngubane said of his interactions with Essa, who was going to organize a trip associated with the CAR. However, due to ongoing conflicts in the Central African Republic, the project was abandoned and Essa resigned from Gade Oil and Gas, Ngubane said.
Ngubane declared his association with Gade Holdings by joining Eskom, but did not include the subsidiary Gade Oil and Gas, which linked him to Essa. Ngubane claimed that his failure to disclose the subsidiary was an innocent mistake.
In 2014, Ngubane joined Eskom as a non-executive director. Following the resignation of Zola Tsotsi as chairman of the board the following year, Ngubane was appointed interim chairman on March 30, 2015. Later, he was appointed chairman.
Tuesday’s proceedings ranged from tense to giggling. Zondo suffered a brief fit of laughter during the afternoon, while the morning session was bleak.
Ngubane became irritable when the defender of the evidence leader Pule Seleka SC questioned his associations with members of the Gupta family, former Oakbay CEO Nazeem Howa and Essa.
While working at the national broadcaster, Ngubane interacted with members of the Gupta family. He was invited to the Guptas’ social events, including the family’s lavish 2013 wedding in Sun City. Like Ngubane, Howa worked in “the media space,” so the executive knew the CEO of Oakbay Investments.
Essa’s associations with Ngubane turned out to be a significant concern during Tuesday’s proceedings, with the witness becoming increasingly hostile to the propositions (i.e. theories) raised by the evidence leader.
An upset Ngubane said, “At one point, I was sitting in about 23 companies. That doesn’t give people the right to turn me into a puppet. I mean, if those associations are going to be linked to undue influence, that’s wrong. ”
At the end of March 2015, Howa sent Essa two emails, each with an attachment. The second, sent on March 30, included a draft declaration to be issued by Ngubane, which Essa had to approve. It reflected inside knowledge of the Eskom board’s insider deliberations on the suspension of four executives and Tsotsi’s departure.
Ngubane and Eskom’s former Chief Legal Officer Suzanne Daniels sent Eskom’s confidential information to the email address [email protected] whose addressee is sometimes referred to as an “entrepreneur”.
In response to the correspondence he sent to the account in September 2015, Ngubane stated that he understood that the email address on the infoportal was that of the General Director (DG) of Public Companies, Richard Seleke. However, Seleke only started working as CEO on December 1, 2015.
“Well, I acknowledged, Chairman, that I hadn’t made the link in terms of time when this infoportal email address was used,” Ngubane admitted.
“Odds are, it wasn’t him,” Zondo said of Seleke.
Daniels has testified that the email address, as the name suggests, was a repository of information. She claimed that it was accessed by several people. The evidence leader advanced the widely held view that Essa controlled the infoportal account.
Seleka (unlike Richard Seleke) raised the opinion of an expert witness presented during Eskom’s disciplinary investigation into Daniels’ conduct, and the evidence gathered in the Fundudzi report. Both considered it likely that Essa managed the email account.
Seleka questioned Ngubane about an email on Monday, September 28, 2015 that she sent to the “businessman’s” email address. In it, Ngubane wrote: “attachment as discussed” in reference to an attachment. Seleka asked: what discussion was the phrase referring to?
“Chairman, I said emphatically that I never had a discussion on this document,” Ngubane replied. He said the attachment (which does not have the investigation) was a letter from then-Minister of Public Enterprises, Lynne Brown.
This is a dangerous proposition that you are making, and therefore I reject it.
Seleka observed that that only made things worse, because she suggested that the “businessman” was working with Brown. “It gives more credence to Ms. Daniels’ evidence that Mr. Essa came forward as Minister Brown’s advisor,” said Seleka.
Ngubane’s behavior altered throughout this stage of Tuesday’s proceedings. He said there must be experts in South Africa who can trace the domain of the “infoportal” email address to finally determine the identity of the “entrepreneur.” “We have to do everything we can,” Zondo agreed.
Seleka evidently detected Ngubane’s growing resistance to the line of questioning and said that the witness should not be upset, as it was necessary to offer Ngubane the opportunity to respond. Zondo supported Seleka, telling Ngubane, “He’s right in saying, ‘Don’t be angry.’
Ngubane said that to his knowledge, no member of the Eskom board was associated with Essa. Seleka said that lent credence to the proposal that the only person who could help Essa make inroads on Eskom’s board would be Ngubane, who emailed Essa at the “information portal” address.
Ngubane’s response was blunt: “This is a dangerous proposition that you are making and therefore I reject it.”
“As far as you knew, you were the type of person who had that kind of relationship with them before,” Seleka continued. Ngubane agreed.
Seleka said: “That leaves one with what could be a conclusion that the only way they interacted or got information about the board, maybe … ha I should tell you this … they got information about the affairs of the meeting could be through your previous partner. I’m putting it for you so you can answer. ”
Zondo then said, “It may be at some point that Seleka or some other attorney will tell me, President, when I evaluate the evidence regarding what happened here, the evidence is such that you must find that there were people who were out at this meeting that were making decisions for this board or manipulating this board. ”
At this, Ngubane alluded to Jacob Zuma. “We know the origin of the decision to suspend executives. We know. Mr. Tsotsi told us exactly what he was instructed to do, who was going to do this. Mr. Tsotsi told us that there was a large and thick document in the Presidency on how this investigation should be conducted ”.
Ngubane argued that the board acted on documents that appeared robust and credible.
“I’m trying to say that the question of being a master plan behind this could have been, but what we acted on was the documents that management had prepared for the board,” he said. DM
