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IOL News reports that former mineral resources minister Ngoako Ramatlhodi on Tuesday made explosive allegations against the Eskom CEO Brian Molefe and board chairperson Dr Ben Ngubane.
According to a report by amaBhungane, Ramatlhodi accused the two of attempting to pressurise him to blackmail Glencore in an attempt to help the Gupta family buy the company's Optimum colliery, which supplied Eskom’s Hendrina power station. At the time, Optimum was reportedly under business administration after Molefe refused to renegotiate the price of a long-term coal contract and reinstated a R2.17 billion penalty on Optimum for allegedly supplying "substandard coal". According to the ex-minister, Molefe and Ngubane demanded that he should suspend all Glencore’s mining licences in SA, pending the payment of the penalty. Ramatlhodi refused because “suspending all of Glencore’s licences would have brought Glencore’s 14 coal operations to a standstill and risked the jobs of its 35,000 employees in South Africa.” Glencore was ultimately only too happy to get out of its punitive deal with Eskom, and Optimum was eventually snapped up by the Guptas.
- Read this report by Khanyisile Ngcobo in full at IOL News
- See too, Brian Molefe helped the Guptas ‘hijack a mine’, says Ramatlhodi, at BusinessLive
- And also, Ramatlhodi spills beans on how Molefe 'helped' Guptas, at Fin24
Get other news reports at the SA Labour News home page