Breaking News
- South Africa’s National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) Investigating Directorate conducted raids early this morning and arrested former Eskom acting CEO Matshela Koko, his wife Mosima and his stepdaughter Koketso Choma on charges of fraud, corruption, and money laundering.
- Koko is accused of promising ABB R6.5bn in future contracts if it sub-contracted work on Kusile to Impulse International, a company partially owned by his stepdaughter.
- Thabo Owen Mokoena, the owner of Leago Engineering that was initially awarded a R96 million subcontract by ABB prior to Impulse International, has also been arrested.
- In total, seven people were arrested alongside Koko. Read more
ABB was reportedly awarded a R2.2bn control and instrumentation contract for Kusile in 2015, and subcontracted some of the work to Impulse. This was despite the fact that Impulse twice failed ABB’s tests for sub-contractor appointments and did not qualify to do the work.
Documents in the Eskom Files – a vast data dump of emails, forensic reports, bank statements and legal and financial records – show that ABB paid Impulse R557m. After Choma became a shareholder at Impulse, Eskom awarded the company a series of other lucrative contracts and paid the firm R295 million
The documents also show that around R30 million flowed from Impulse to a company, Ukwakhiwa Investments, which was owned by Choma. Ukwakhiwa Investments then paid R14.5 million to High Echelon Trading, a company owned by Koko’s wife. Court documents reveal that millions were spent on overseas trips, luxury cars and houses by Koko, his wife and two daughters.
In July two former employees of ABB, as well as their spouses, were arrested for corruption linked to Eskom contracts involving R2.2 billion. Read more
During December 2020 ABB South Africa agreed to pay Eskom R1.577 billion of funds it had been irregularly paid after it voluntarily disclosed collusion with certain Eskom officials to irregularly award it R2.2 billion for a control and instrumentation contract for Kusile Power Station in 2015. Read more
Koko has consistently denied involvement in ABB’s awarding of sub-contracts to Impulse.
Author: Bryan Groenendaal
