Matshela Koko and one of his co-accused in the R2bn Eskom fraud, corruption and money laundering case allegedly put up a fight when police came to pick them up this week in surprise early-morning raids, with the former power utility boss questioning every aspect of his processing at a police station before he was taken to court.
Former South African Local Government Association CEO Thabo Mokwena, who was also arrested on Thursday morning and charged alongside Koko, refused to open his gate for police officers who arrived around 6.30am.
Police had considered breaking down the gate to his home in the posh Johannesburg suburb of Bryanston, a prosecutor told the court.
The prosecutor said all eight accused were arrested around 6.30am, except for Mokwena who was taken into custody two hours later because he opened his gate only after his lawyers arrived.
The prosecutor alleged that Mokwena lied “point blank” to the arresting officers about his diplomatic passport, initially saying that he did not have one, only to produce it later.
Mokwena brought in former national director of public prosecutions Shaun Abrahams as his lawyer but the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) raised objections because the case was first presented to the NPA while Abrahams was its boss.
The Sunday Times has learnt that despite being arrested before 7am at home in Fourways, Johannesburg, and driven to Middelburg, Mpumalanga, Koko's arrest had not been finalised by noon because he apparently questioned every step of the process.
“He was just refusing to co-operate with the police and as a result it took way longer to get him processed,” a police insider said.
Koko said yesterday: “Interesting that the hard time I allegedly gave the police was not that important for the NPA to raise during my bail hearing.”
Asked why he had not been processed by noon, Koko responded: “I was not processing myself. The police were processing me. The fact that police are raising this matter with the Sunday Times and not with the magistrate can only mean they think you are credulous.”
Magistrate Deon van Rooyen, who presided over the specialised commercial crimes court sitting in the Middelburg magistrate’s court, ordered that the investigators and prosecutors be neither named nor photographed.
After delays — ironically caused by load-shedding — the bail applications of all eight accused concluded close to 7pm.
Mokwena, who was charged with two counts of fraud and one of corruption, hid his face throughout the five-hour court appearance. He owns five cars, including two BMWs, a Mercedes-Benz, a Range Rover and a VW Golf. He bought his Bryanston house for R6.5m in 2015.
Koko, 53, was charged with three counts of corruption and one count of fraud and another count of money laundering. He was charged alongside his wife, Mosima, and two stepdaughters Koketso Aren and Thato Choma. The prosecutors said he was central to the case, the “puppet master in a scheme which benefited him and his family”, scoring them millions of rand and luxury overseas holidays.
But Koko's lawyer said Koko was “unemployed” and pleaded poverty, asking for bail to be set at R50,000.
“If we look at what [Koko's wife and stepdaughters] are facing and they have paid R70,000, R50,000 is a joke for what [Koko] allegedly did to Eskom, Kusile and this country,” the prosecutor said in response to Koko's bail plea.
Koko later managed to come up with the R300,000 bail. His wife and stepdaughters were released on R70,000 bail each, meaning the family paid R510,000 and left without spending a night in jail.
The state indicated that Koko's vehicle fleet included a Lexus LX570, a Mercedes C207 (an E-Class coupe) and a Mercedes W205 (C-Class). He owns a property in the prestigious Cedar Lakes luxury estate which he bought for R6.5m in 2015.
When the prosecutor told the court that Koko’s private company had struck an energy deal in Zimbabwe worth about $250m (about R4.2bn), Koko waved his lawyer over to where he sat in the dock to whisper in his ear.
His lawyer then told the court Koko wanted “to correct the record”, saying “my client knows nothing” about a billion-rand-plus deal”.
Dressed in a black Adidas hoodie and a bomber jacket, a sullen Koko put on a brief show for the cameras, say the NPA were “setting themselves up for failure”.
In the dock alongside Mokwena and Koko and his family were Hlupheka Sithole, the former project director at Kusile power station whom the NPA described as the most senior person on site, lawyer Johannes Coetzee and Watson Seswai, an employee at Impulse, a company implicated in the alleged corruption.
Sithole, Mokwena and Seswai were released on R500,000 bail each.
The state alleges that when the South African subsidiary of Swiss company ABB was appointed in 2015 to build a part of Kusile power station, ABB gave a R96m contract to Mokwena's company, then known as Leago Strategic Services, ostensibly for skills development and “industrialisation”. At the time, Mokwena and Koko were allegedly close associates.
In his affidavit, the investigating officer said an ABB employee told him that a subsequent R9.6m payment ABB made to Mokwena was meant for Koko.
“Investigations revealed that Koko used his influence and position to influence the award ... of the contract to ABB in that he ... engaged in a generally corrupt relationship with ABB employees ... and Mokwena,” the statement says.
The state alleges that in 2016, Sithole granted four variation orders to ABB South Africa to provide extra work not covered in the initial multibillion-rand contract.
Koko's lawyer said Koko was 'unemployed' and pleaded poverty, asking for bail to be set at R50,000
Kusile, which was supposed to supply almost 5,000MW of power, has been beset by expensive delays and major construction defects that will cost many more billions of rand to fix. Eskom told parliament's standing committee on public accounts this month that Kusile, where building work began in 2008, will be completed only by 2026.
In his statement, the investigating officer says Koko's relationship with Mokwena broke down and no further contracts were handed to him or any companies he represented. This led to the introduction of Impulse International, which appointed Koko's stepdaughter, Choma, as a director in March 2016.
The Sunday Times reported in April 2017 how Koko and Impulse director Pragasen Pather spoke on the phone at least 52 times between April and November 2016. Both men denied knowing each other until confronted with the phone records.
Koko later said that as an Eskom executive he regularly spoke to service providers. Pather said Koko asked for help with load-shedding.
The Sunday Times reported that on April 1 2016, the day Choma joined Impulse, Koko phoned Pather at 7.58pm. On August 1 2016, three weeks before Impulse was awarded two contracts worth almost R100m, Koko was also on the phone to Pather.
Pather died in June last year but his company is among the accused in the case.
Sithole, whose top Eskom job earned him a R2m annual salary, was charged with accepting bribes from Impulse in exchange for using his position and influence to get them contracts.
Sithole was charged with two counts of corruption and one each of fraud and money laundering. Seswai was charged with one count of corruption.
The Investigating Directorate said the arrest of Koko and the others was about accountability and the rule of law.
“We must execute the NPA’s constitutional mandate for justice,” said ID head Andrea Johnson.
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