Rapport writes that trade union Solidarity will be targeting the 15 properties of Brian Molefe, the disgraced former head of Eskom, to recover legal fees and his unlawful pension payout.
Molefe received a third legal blow last week when the Supreme Court of Appeal turned down his petition to appeal a judgment of the Pretoria High Court that he must pay back a portion of his pension monies. The ink was scarcely dry on the decision when the first of two letters of demand were sent to Molefe. Anton van der Bijl, head of legal services at Solidarity, advised that the union, which was one of the parties in the court case, had sent an account of more than R700,000 to Molefe’s legal team in respect of the original court case. A bill of about R300,000 for the two unsuccessful appeal applications will still follow. The other letter of demand was apparently from the Eskom pension fund. Van der Bijl observed that Molefe was not at all as indigent as he has portrayed himself. The union will seek to have Molefe’s properties auctioned and will put pressure on the pension fund to recover its monies if Molefe should now claim that he doesn’t have the necessary funds to pay up. Public records show that in the last decade Molefe paid some R35 million for properties, which in most of the instances were paid for in cash. The properties would now be worth a lot more than the original purchase prices, Van der Bijl reckoned.
- Read the full original of Antoinette Slabbert’s report on this story in Afrikaans at Netwerk24 (paywall access only)
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