1993

2008

2012

2015

June: Molefe communicated to OCM that he wanted to terminate the agreement, even if it caused financial losses for OCM. He also declared that OCM would indeed be liable for the R2.17bn penalty fee, due immediately, despite Eskom’s lawyers raising concerns that the amount may not have been calculated correctly.

July: Auditing firm KPMG informed Glencore that an undisclosed buyer was interested in acquiring OCM. When Glencore expressed unease about engaging with an unidentified buyer, the buyer was revealed as the Gupta’s flagship company, Oakbay.

Eskom issued OCM with an official demand for the R2.17bn penalty.

August: OCM and OCH went into business rescue.

September: Ngubane and Molefe pressed the Minister of Mineral Resources, Ngoako Ramatlhodi, to suspend Glencore’s mining licences. When the minister hesitated, Ngubane allegedly became impatient and implied that the instructions had come from Zuma and should not be challenged. Soon after, Zuma removed Ramatlhodi and replaced him with the so-called ‘Gupta minister’, Mosebenzi Zwane. Zwane appointed advisors who were also reportedly Gupta affiliates: Malcolm Mabaso and Kuben Moodley. Molefe, Joel Raphela from the Department of Mineral Resources (DMR), Zwane, Mabaso and Moodley threatened to suspend Glencore’s mining licences. Around this time, Molefe also allegedly intimidated another buyer interested in Glencore, Phembani Group, saying that it would have to pay the R2.17bn penalty if it wished to acquire OCH.

November: Oakbay and the business rescue practitioners at Glencore signed a term sheet to clear the way for Oakbay to acquire OCH. However, the CEO of Glencore South Africa, Clinton Ephron, was summoned to a meeting with Raphela, Koko and representatives of Tegeta. Koko reportedly informed those present that Tegeta would only go ahead with the deal if OCH sold not only OCM but also its other assets, including the valuable Richard’s Bay coal terminal and Koornfontein coal mine. The next day, Ajay Gupta made Ephron an offer to buy OCH for R1bn, but Ephron declined because this would not settle OCH’s debt with the South African banks. The same day, the DMR instructed Glencore to stop its mining activities.

December: Ephron informed Koko that they would be taking OCH out of business rescue, presumably in response to the suspension of its mining licences. Glencore would honour all its original contracts with Eskom until 2018, even though this would mean that Glencore incurred a loss. Koko initially stated that Eskom was happy with this deal.

At the same time, Zwane contacted Glencore’s global CEO, Ivan Glasenberg, and they met in person in Switzerland. Zwane allegedly urged Glasenberg to sell OCH to Tegeta, claiming he was concerned about job losses if OCH closed. Subsequently, a meeting took place between Zwane, Essa, Tony Gupta, Glasenberg and Ephron. Zwane reportedly introduced Essa as one of his advisors and then left the meeting. Those in the meeting agreed that Glencore would sell OCH for R2.15bn and Glencore would contribute additional funds to settle outstanding debt. Zwane boarded a private jet to Delhi where he met with the Guptas before travelling with them to Muscat, where the Guptas allegedly bought him a BMW 7 series.

After successfully convincing Glencore to sell OCH and its accompanying assets, the Guptas needed to find the money to complete the purchase. Koko reportedly told Eskom legal head Suzanne Daniels to approach the DMR for help. Her letter implied that OCM was at risk of being liquidated, which was untrue. To solve the supposed liquidation problem, Eskom suggested transferring mining licences to Tegeta as quickly as possible and buying a year’s worth of coal upfront. Ngubane asked Daniels to draft an urgent round-robin resolution calling for the upfront purchase of the coal to the tune of R1.68bn. Singh, Koko and Daniels from Eskom and Eric Wood and Mohamed Bobat from the company Regiments Capital reportedly made significant contributions to drafting the resolution. The resolution was approved the day after being sent out, one day before Tegeta signed the final purchase agreement with OCH.

Once the agreement was signed, Singh quickly converted approval for the R1.68bn prepayment into a bank guarantee. Ravindra Nath, another Gupta employee at Tegeta, wrote to the Bank of Baroda to inform them that Tegeta now had the funds to complete the purchase. Tegeta presented the confirmation letter from Baroda and the evidence of the Eskom guarantee to OCH’s consortium banks to convince them they were liquid enough to go through with the acquisition. Tegeta did not allow the business rescue practitioners at OCH or the consortium banks to keep a copy of Baroda’s letter. In other words, the consortium banks approved the transaction based on the money that Tegeta presented to them rather than Baroda’s letter and the Eskom guarantee.

2016

As a result, Tegeta successfully acquired OCH and its accompanying assets. The Guptas had been particularly interested in two mine-rehabilitation trusts called Optimum and Koornfontein, collectively worth R1.75bn. These trusts are typically set aside for the exclusive use of rehabilitation once a mine reaches the end of its life cycle. The Guptas bought these assets partly with state money, and deposited the balance of the trusts into their personal bank accounts.

2017

2018

2024

2011

2012

2014

2015

April: A number of issues made the Brakfontein mine unsuitable for an Eskom contract. Firstly, KPMG provided Eskom with the opinion that Tegeta was not financially sound enough for such a big contract. This assessment was only made after the deal had been agreed upon. Secondly, Tegeta only had mining licences until October 2020 for an agreement that spanned from 2015 to 2025. If Tegeta was unable to renew its licences, it would be unable to provide Eskom with coal from Brakfontein after October 2020. Thirdly, the quality of the coal mined at Brakfontein was deficient. The contract signed on 10 March stipulated that coal mined at Brakfontein had to be subject to a combustion test, which would verify if the coal burned correctly in Eskom’s burners, by the end of the month. This test was never performed, but tests run in 2014 had shown that the quality of the coal was inferior.

May: An amendment was made to the contract to waive the testing requirement. Eskom also moved from SGS Services SA to Sibonisiwe Coal Laboratory Services to test Brakfontein’s coal. Between May and August, Sibonisiwe repeatedly reported that the coal’s quality was inferior.

June: Tegeta offered an extra 200 000 tonnes of coal a month, which would be supplied by Brakfontein Extension. Nteta told Nath that Eskom agreed in principle with the offer but the combustion test was still needed. Email correspondence between Nath, Nteta and Tony Gupta showed that Nath advised Nteta to remove this clause so that the deal would go through. A new letter was drafted that excluded the provision about the combustion test.

July: Dr Mark van der Riet, a coal specialist and acting manager of the PED, was asked to help PED manage coal supplies. His staff reportedly told him their concerns about the quality of the coal they were receiving from Brakfontein – around 50% was being rejected because of its inferior quality.

August: A senior employee at Tegeta, Jacques Roux, complained to Koko about Sibonisiwe repeatedly failing the coal. The director of Sibonisiwe, Sibonisiwe Masuku, testified that he experienced intimidation and threats from Koko about his company failing the coal. Gert Opperman, an Eskom contract manager, was also reportedly placed under enormous pressure by Koko to get the Majuba power station to accept poor-quality coal.

After a final set of tests was sent to Koko showing that the coal’s quality was subpar, Koko ordered that another sample be taken. He reportedly prevented van der Riet and his colleague from witnessing the testing and then told them that the testing had been cancelled. However, the following day Koko had a new report claiming that the quality of the coal was acceptable. Koko allegedly told van der Riet to hand over a file that contained CCTV footage and an affidavit documenting how Roux and a colleague forced their way into the offices to confront the staff about the test results. Koko ordered the suspension of coal supplies from Brakfontein but lifted the suspension five days later.

September: On 1 September, van der Riet gave the file with the CCTV footage and affidavit to Mboweni, who reported to Koko. During this meeting, Mboweni handed van der Riet a letter from Koko suspending him and three of his colleagues.

October: Koko declared that the quality testing issue had been resolved and the testing would now happen at the Kendal Power Station Laboratory. At the time, the Kendal laboratory at Eskom did not have the requisite independent certification to complete such tests. Kendal only failed 3% of Tegeta’s coal between October 2015 and the end of the contract (Tegeta’s closure in 2018).

2016

2018

2014

2015

May: Molefe and Singh broached the possibility of a turnaround project larger than the Top Engineers Programme with McKinsey, termed interchangeably the ‘Turnaround Strategy’ or ‘MSA’. Singh had not yet been transferred to Eskom but was already participating in negotiations with McKinsey and, before he started working at Eskom, had allegedly provided advice to the consulting companies on how best to present their proposals to Eskom.

A submission to the board proposed McKinsey as the sole service provider of the Turnaround Strategy and no open tender process was pursued. Eskom executives maintained that McKinsey was uniquely positioned to deliver its services because it had a history of engaging with Eskom on the Top Engineers Programme.

Establishing the details of this MSA went ahead before Eskom and McKinsey had signed the contract. The conditions of the MSA were highly irregular: it concluded that, on an at-risk basis, McKinsey and Regiments would be paid a percentage of the savings that their work generated for Eskom over a three-year period with no cap on this amount. McKinsey would receive 70% and Regiments would receive 30%. This is unlawful under the Public Finance Management Act (1999), which stipulates that consultants must be appointed on a fixed-fee basis. Any deviations from this stipulation must be applied for in writing to the National Treasury. Molefe approved the submission for the MSA.

July: Returning from his short suspension, Koko allegedly engaged with Essa in secret about the MSA. Koko worked with a list of entities or transactions that he reportedly told Suzanne Daniels had come from his ‘principals’. This list resembled those drafted at Regiments, which allowed the company to estimate the revenue it generated from various projects. In other words, Koko was probably being told about contracts that could make their way to Regiments and how much money they would make for Regiments. On this list, there was a hand-written note by Koko referencing Zestilor, a Gupta-owned company run by Essa’s wife.

August: A second contract called the Corporate Plan was being drafted so that Eskom could contract McKinsey for ‘urgent finance work’.

September: Koko and Singh presented a submission to the Eskom board on the Corporate Plan contract. The board agreed to appoint McKinsey for eight months of work worth R101m. It has been reported that no competitive tender process was pursued and a senior Eskom employee testified that these financial services could have been provided by Eskom’s internal team.

October: The board Tender Committee approved a submission that Eskom could conclude the negotiations around the MSA. The submission also requested approval for a R475m down payment to be made to McKinsey even though a budget had not been finalised by McKinsey nor had it rendered any services to Eskom.

December: Eskom executives ignored the fact that approval to appoint McKinsey on a sole-source and at-risk basis had not been sought nor secured from the National Treasury. They sent an acceptance letter on the MSA to McKinsey, who accepted it. The letter included the condition that if the National Treasury was unhappy with the contract, the two parties would renegotiate its terms. This strategy to circumvent the lack of approval from the National Treasury was reportedly misleading and unintelligible.

2016

February: Wood left Regiments to form Trillian with Essa, and they wanted Trillian to take over Regiments’ role in the outsourced work for the MSA.

March: McKinsey formally rejected Trillian as a partner after conducting a due diligence. It cited Essa’s alleged reputation as a ‘politically exposed person’ as one of the reasons. Trillian nevertheless invoiced Eskom R30.6m for work that was executed by Regiments and not Trillian. Tebogo Leballo, Trillian’s financial director, sent the invoice to Singh claiming that Trillian was a small business that was experiencing cash flow problems. Trillian wanted to be paid directly by Eskom instead of waiting to be paid by McKinsey, who had appointed Trillian as its partner. This was untrue and Trillian had no business with Eskom.

McKinsey rendered services for only six of the eight month contract but was paid R78.6m.

April: Eskom paid Trillian R30.6m for the Corporate Plan contract that had been invoiced the previous month.

June: The allegedly captured officials at Eskom were unhappy about McKinsey rejecting Trillian. Eskom’s Steering Committee (Steerco) convened a meeting chaired by Singh, during which he raised concerns over awarding the MSA contract to McKinsey on a sole-source basis. Steerco agreed with Singh and terminated the contract with McKinsey. Eskom negotiated a final fee of R1.8bn to pay McKinsey. The Eskom executives did not provide a breakdown for how they reached the settlement value, and they reportedly used an inflated price of R2.84bn to mislead and instil fear among the board Tender Committee members, who were relieved that a lower fee of R1.8bn had been reached.

August: Eskom began making payments to McKinsey and Trillian regarding the cancelled MSA agreement.

December: Oliver Wyman & Marsh international consultants advised Eskom to withhold payments to McKinsey and Trillian. They were concerned about how the fees had been calculated and the legality of the contracts. They encouraged Eskom to seek legal advice. This was ignored and the payments continued until February 2017.

2017

2008

2013

2014

Sunil Vip, an employee of ZAABB, was allegedly providing the company with crucial insider information from Eskom.

2015

May: The Leago Group officially entered into an agreement with ZAABB as a subcontractor.

April: An advance payment was made following the signing of the ZAABB-Eskom contract.

December: Vip reportedly advised ZAABB to present a proposal of no more than R2.2bn. ZAABB decided to subcontract Impulse International, despite its poor scores in procurement tests and lack of relevant qualifications. Koko’s stepdaughter, Koketso Aren (née Choma), became a significant shareholder in the company after it was awarded the contract. The reported value of the subcontract ranges, but the Daily Maverick puts the total amount paid by ZAABB to Impulse at R543.5m, of which R24m was used to reward individuals and entities with kickbacks. Koko and his family accessed their kickbacks through front companies.

Two former employees of ZAABB, Mohammed Mooidheen and Vernon Pillay, along with their wives, allegedly benefited from kickbacks for their complicity in the scheme. The reports on the exact value of the kickbacks varies, although it has been reported that Mohammed and Raeesa Mooidheen received several million in cash and significant funding from Impulse to purchase a Mercedes Benz AMG and Volkswagen Gold VII. Vernon and Aradhna Pillay reportedly received several million in cash and significant funding from Impulse to help purchase a Toyota Land Cruiser.

2020

2017

November: Based on signing the term sheet, HEA invoiced Eskom US$21.8m. Pillay blocked the payment.

December: Maritz agreed to sign an asset loan framework agreement with HEA, which allowed HEA to resubmit an invoice. Pillay approached the director general of the National Treasury, Dondo Mogajane, which led to a revocation of the deals’ approval.