The NPA’s Investigating Directorate have arrested former ESKOM chief executive officer Matshela Koko, his wife Mosima and his stepdaughter Koketso Choma on charges of corruption.
The charges relate to Eskom’s multibillion-rand contract with Swiss engineering company Asea Brown Boveri (ABB) in 2015. ABB subcontracted to a local company, Impulse International, which Choma was a shareholder in. She received R30 million form the deal, of which some of the profits went to Mosima Koko.
In a statement this morning, Sindisiwe Seboka, the spokesperson for the Investigating Directorate said eight people were expected appear in the Mpumalanga Middleburg Magistrate’s Court on charges of fraud, corruption and money laundering.
“The accused are to be arraigned on charges arising from alleged irregular contracts granted for the building of Kusile Power Stations valued at over R2 billion. The accused were arrested in Gauteng and Mpumalanga this morning at the crack of dawn,” she said.
The State Capture Inquiry, led by Chief Justice Raymond Zondo, recommended that Koko must be investigated and possibly prosecuted for a series of Gupta-linked deals during his tenure at the embattled power utility Eskom.
The commission found that Koko was “an integral component of the Gupta family’s strategy to capture Eskom”.
Zondo recommended that Koko should be criminally investigated for state capture related crimes, including the ABB deal and the Guptas’ controversial Tegeta deal.
Thabo Owen Mokeona, the owner of Leago Engineering which was initially awarded a R96 million subcontract by ABB prior to Impulse International, was also arrested.
In May Koko and Brian Molefe, the former Eskom executive decried the State capture inquiry report, questioning the recommendation that further investigations into their activities be carried out by law enforcement agencies.
The two were reacting after Zondo’s report stated that there was a “pervasive culture of corrupt practices, mismanagement, and malfeasance that had been inculcated within Eskom promoted by executives and board members since 2014”.
Source: News24, IOL, The Citizen, Engineering News, image from Twitter: @KingMntungwa