Zondo defends ‘hostile’ summons issued to Brian Molefe

The Chairperson of the State Capture Inquiry, Raymond Zondo has assured former Eskom CEO Brian Molefe, there was no hostile intent behind the summons issued towards him.

The proceedings kicked off with Zondo responding to Molefe’s sentiments when he first took the stand in January 2021.

The chairperson said as the commission they would generally not issue summons for people who were cooperating – however that all changed due to time constrains.

“Sometimes there’ll be somebody who may not be somebody who’s not cooperating but may be putting certain priorities in terms of dates,” Zondo said.

“Just because a summons is issued it doesn’t mean the commission doesn’t trust you to cooperate so we have issued more summonses as we approach the end of the work of the commission”

Brian Molefe: Zondo’s summons ‘unnecessarily hostile’

When Brian Molefe took the stand in the beginning of the year, he had questioned why he had been issued a summons, particularly as he has always been cooperative.

“In December, to my surprise what I get is a summons. A summons to a person who has been begging to come. The commission has a right to issue summons but I felt like it was unnecessarily hostile…even if I had been sent an SMS message chairperson, I would have been here,” he said at the time.

Molefe’s testimony comes a day after former Eskom CEO Matshela Koko took the stand. At the heart of Koko’s testimony was a mystery email address which was privy to important operational matters at the power utility.

Koko had had several exchanges with the email address and claimed he believed the person behind them to be former Eskom board chairperson Dr Ben Ngubane. He alleged that it was the utility’s former legal executive Suzanne Daniels had given him the email address. However Daniels, who had also testified, denied this – and further said she believed the author of the email to be Salim Essa, a Gupta-linked business associate.

“I do not accept that in 2015 I knew I was sending e-mail to the businessman. At no stage did I communicate with a third party,” said Koko.