The DA welcomes today’s ruling by the Labour Court in Gauteng to postpone Brian Molefe’s case pending the outcome of the DA’s High Court application against Molefe. This is directly in line with what the DA argued for in court and is a victory. Molefe has also been ordered to pay the DA’s legal costs.
The DA has consistently held that Molefe resigned from his position as Eskom’s Group CEO following which he took up another job – as a Member of Parliament. While Molefe now claims that he instead went into early retirement, his actions at the time and all statements by Eskom and the Minister at the time indicated that he had resigned. If this was not the case then he should have refuted them.
Further, section 47 of the Constitution is clear that a person may not become a Member of Parliament while still in the employ of, or receiving remuneration from, a state entity.
While Molefe had approached the Labour Court to argue the illegality of his removal from Eskom by its board in early June, our contention has always been that this cannot be argued until the substantive matter of Molefe’s resignation and then subsequent re-employment have been dealt with in part B of our High Court application.
It is our contention that Molefe’s re-employment at Eskom was completely irrational and illegal and as a result has no lawful position at Eskom.
We look forward to presenting our arguments in the High Court so that we can ensure that Molefe is held accountable on this issue. It is clear that Molefe is not fit to restore good governance practices at the Eskom and indeed should have no further place there.
The DA will continue to take all possible steps towards ensuring that our state-owned entities are no longer pilfered for the benefit of the Guptas and a politically connected few.