Former president Jacob Zuma allegedly called an acting director-general of the department of public enterprise telling her to inform then Eskom chairperson Zola Tsotsi to postpone a board meeting.
Matsietsi Mokholo, who was the acting director-general at the time, testified about a late call she received while in Cape Town in 2015, just a day before a board meeting.
Mokholo told the State Capture Commission on Thursday that the call from Zuma took place while the then public enterprise minister Lynne Brown was overseas.
“I received a call from a landline on my mobile ... when I answered the call, there was a male voice on the other side of the line who greeted me and wanted to confirm it they are speaking to the right person. Then he asked me to hold for the president. I then said 'which president' and the man replied 'president Zuma',” Mokholo testified.
On the line, Mokholo testified, Zuma informed her that he had been trying to get hold of Brown and the deputy minister but that he had been unsuccessful.
“He said 'you are acting director-general', I said 'yes'. He said, 'so you are in charge'. He then went to tell me that there is a board meeting at Eskom. I indicated to the president that we don’t get the calendar of the board meetings so I would not be able to know.
“The president said he was informing me that there was a board meeting the next day at Eskom, because he is unable to reach the minister and the deputy minister ... he would like me to call the chairperson [Tsotsi] and ask him to postpone the meeting until the minister is back,” Mokholo said.
Mokholo said she indicated to Zuma that Tsotsi would obviously need to know why the board meeting had to be postponed at such short notice.
To this Zuma allegedly told Mokholo to inform Tsotsi to postpone the meeting and await further instructions from his shareholder minister. That was the end of the call.
“Cela usihlalo ahlehlise umhlangano,” Mokholo directly quoted Zuma to the commission chairperson, Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo.
She said she did not call Tsotsi immediately but instead tried to call Brown, but did not get hold of her.
“I wanted the minister to get hold of him [Zuma] so that she can impress upon the president the difficulty of the shareholder telling the board to postpone a board meeting. That it puts us against our own governance [protocols].”
She told the commission that she was reluctant to make the call to Tsotsi as board meetings were not her business.
“We had just done an induction of the board as the department. In our induction we had made it clear that there are matters in which the minister can step in but they have triggers ... That is why I did not call the chairperson immediately.”
Another issue that Mokholo had was that that the meeting was not a shareholder intervention meeting in which government would be present.
Mokholo ultimately called Tsotsi to pass the message of the president on but he refused demanding reasons.
But when she explained that this was on a Zuma’s insistence, Tsotsi had nothing else to say and the conversation ended. Zuma allegedly also called Tsotsi himself to give the instruction.
When Brown returned to the country Mokholo informed her about the call and she responded “Eish Matsi.”
It was the first time that Mokholo had received a call from the president, and it shook her.
In September, Tsotsi testified that he had received a call from Zuma, which he described as “strange” as it was not his business that was scheduled to be discussed at the board meeting.
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