The National Prosecuting Authority’s Investigating Directorate (ID) seemingly dropped the ball and missed an opportunity to apprehend eight Germans accused of having colluded with former Eskom CEO Matshela Koko to loot the state entity.
Sunday World understands the prosecuting authority’s delay in handing over evidence to German authorities two years ago appears to be the reason why the eight Germans are still roaming the streets in Europe – and did not appear in the dock with Koko and seven others last week in a Mpumalanga court.
Koko was arrested alongside his wife, Mosima, and his two stepdaughters, Koketso Aren and Thato Choma. Also in the firing line are former South African Local Government Association chief executive Thabo Mokwena; Eskom’s project director at
Kusile, Frans Sithole; lawyer Johannes Coetzee; and businessperson Watson Seswai.
Seven entities are also listed in the draft charge sheet.
The parties were arraigned on charges of corruption over a R2.2-billion contract Eskom entered with Swiss engineering company Asea Brown Boveri (ABB) in 2015 to install systems at Kusile Power Station in Mpumalanga.
At the heart of the allegations is the R549-million sub-contract awarded to Impulse International, a company in which Koko’s stepdaughter was a shareholder.
Koko made at least R30-million from the deal and a further R28-million was paid out in alleged bribes.
However, missing in the dock last week were eight Germans who used to work for ABB and allegedly facilitated the bribes. They are Sunil Ranjendar VIP, Markus Brügmann, Ingo Wagner, Gotz-Dietrich Wolff, Stephan Brand, Markus John, Bruno Theimer and Henning Meincke.
This newspaper has it on good authority that in December 2020, Uwe Siegrist, a senior public prosecutor with the Mannheim Prosecution Office, requested for a mutual legal assistance agreement with South Africa to obtain evidence to be used in pursuit of an indictment and criminal proceedings of the eight implicated in the Kusile saga.
Siegrist, in a letter, states that Brugmann, who had done business with Eskom with a previous company, in 2014 identified Koko as a “key figure” before the agreement with ABB was signed.
“The suspicion is particularly based on the report filed by ABB received on May 8 2019 by the Maanheim Prosecution Office …
“The suspects are in particular suspected of bribery of foreign public officials…” he wrote.
The German prosecutor alleges that Koko and Mokoena, who was the initial subcontractor through Leago Engineering until a fall out with the former Eskom CEO, provided the negotiators of ABB confidential information of the bidding process and the competitor’s prices.
“There is suspicion that not only the suspects VIP, Wolff, Brugmann and Wagner, but also the suspects Meincke, Brand, John and Theimer, who are employees of ABB and were superior to VIP, were aware … of the fact that the prices were agreed as ‘target prices’ between suspects VIP and Koko in order to ensure that further orders would be placed with ABB and its subsidiaries and Koko and its environment would receive ‘bribe payments’,” he said.
South Africa’s initial decision to reject Germany’s request for evidence in December 2020 appears to have delayed the investigations. In October 2021, 10 months after Siegrist’s request, Pretoria turned him down.
In a letter to the Mannheim Prosecution Office, dated October 26 2021, Edgar Botes from the directorate of the international legal relations of the department of justice and constitutional development, explained the ID was already investigating the matter.
The request for assistance coincidently came the same month that ABB publicly announced it had reached a settlement with Eskom to pay about $104-million back to Eskom.
While answering questions from journalists in the dock at Middelburg magistrate’s court, Koko said the NPA had set itself up for failure.
ABB two months ago said it had made a provision relating to the remaining Kusile matters. “ABB is progressing discussions with relevant authorities regarding the remaining matters related to the legacy Kusile project. Consequently, ABB will make a non-operational provision of approximately $325-million,” the company said.
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