Eskom inquiry postponed, suspended CFO Singh accused of delaying tactics

5th December 2017 By: African News Agency

Suspended Eskom CFO Anoj Singh was on Tuesday told he would be called to testify before Parliament’s inquiry into the power utility at a later date, after he infuriated MPs by submitting 400 pages of documentation less that 24 hours before his scheduled appearance.

“We are not going to engage with you today,” the chairwoman of the committee, Zukiswa Rantho, said.

“I want to register our disappointment as a committee because we have given you enough time.”

Rantho said it was not possible for members of Parliament’s portfolio committee on public enterprises, which is holding the inquiry, to do justice to the information they were given and Singh would therefore be called back at a future date.

Democratic Alliance public enterprises spokesperson Natasha Mazzone accused Singh of using delaying tactics and treating the committee with contempt.

“It simply goes to illustrate why we are sitting in this committee. We will see you in January,” she added.

It is understood that Singh sent the documentation to the committee at 11pm on Monday. Rantho said it included documents that the committee requested of him some six months ago.

Singh was suspended at the insistence of Eskom’s lenders after the company was forced in August to retract assurances that there had been no irregular payments to Trillian and McKinsey. This followed after New-York based management consultancy Oliver Wyman disclosed that it had recommended a legal review of payments totalling R1.6-billion to the two firms.