Ex-Eskom CEO Koko challenges settlement related to his graft case

Former Eskom CEO Matshela Koko has launched a court bid to challenge a settlement deal between the Investigating Directorate ID) and multi-national company ABB relating to bribery at the power utility.

The Directorate is part of South Africa's National Prosecuting Authority's (NPA).

It's a particularly complicated legal matter, as investigative journalist Kyle Cowan reports for News24.

The settlement is part of a deal ABB struck with prosecutors in South Africa, the US, Germany and Switzerland for a company admission that it violated corruption laws by paying bribes to a senior Eskom official - Koko - in securing a contract to install control and instrumentation at the Kusile power station.

As part of the deal, writes Cowan, ABB paid more than R5 billion back to South Africa and agreed to provide its full cooperation.

This included sharing the findings of a huge internal investigation, which made current and former employees available for interviews.

Without this cooperation from ABB, the case could be in jeopardy.

The case was withdrawn in November 2023 after the then-acting magistrate of the Middelburg Regional Court struck the case from the roll, ruling there had been unreasonable delays on the part of the prosecution.

The magistrate, Stanley Jacobs, had failed to declare he had done business with Eskom in the past.

The ID wants the case re-enrolled.

In conversation with John Perlman, Cowan says this turn of events provided Koko with a window of opportunity.

"If the criminal case was still going on it would be a very simple argument - the argument is in fact made by the Investigating Directorate and ABB, that all of these issues that Mr Koko's raising in his application to have this agreement set aside is that, in effect, he will have an opportunity to do this in the criminal trial... He can attack the agreement and the evidence..."

Kyle Cowan, Investigative Journalist - News24

Cowan acknowledges that looking at the case from the outside, it does appear that things are taking too long.

He emphasises however, that it is a very complex matter which required 'months and months' of forensic work because of the sheer amount of evidence that was seized.

Both the Investigating Directorate and ABB are opposing the application by Koko, who continues maintaining his innocence.

Scroll up to listen to the interview and click here to read Cowan's detailed report