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Former acting Eskom CEO Matshela Koko has apologised to ANC leader Gwede Mantashe's daughter Nombasa Mawela, a year and ten months after alleging at a disciplinary hearing that she was a beneficiary of corruption.
In November 2017 the then-suspended Eskom executive alleged that Mawela, and others, had been involved in corruption. Koko resigned from Eskom in February 2018.
Mawela lodged a R500 000 defamation lawsuit against Koko in 2018 over the claims he made, according to TimesLive.
On Sunday on Twitter Koko retracted the corruption allegation in a series of tweets, saying he apologised to Mawela for "any harm to her reputation suffered as a result of these allegations".
In November 2017 during disciplinary proceedings at Eskom I stated that Nombasa Mawela had been on a retainer for 24 months from Hlakudi Translations and had received money from corrupt payments made to that entity
— Engineer Matšhela Koko (@koko_matshela) October 6, 2019
On 30 November and 1 December 2017 I shared links on Twitter to news articles reporting on the disciplinary proceedings. The articles suggested that Ms Mawela was the beneficiary of corruption at Eskom's Kusile Plant.
— Engineer Matšhela Koko (@koko_matshela) October 6, 2019
At the time I believed that Ms Mawela had received the money as a bribe. I now accept that this belief was incorrect and that the money Ms Mawela received was in respect of bona fide business transactions, not involving corruption or Eskom.
— Engineer Matšhela Koko (@koko_matshela) October 6, 2019
I apologise to Ms Mawela for any harm to her reputation suffered as a result of these allegations
— Engineer Matšhela Koko (@koko_matshela) October 6, 2019
The former Eskom acting CEO has himself been the subject of allegations of corruption, which he has denied. In March, at the ongoing judicial commission of inquiry into state capture, a coal supply unit manager at Eskom said that in 2015, he twice received phone calls from Koko instructing him to accept that sub-standard coal be forwarded to Majuba power station.
Koko told Fin24 at the time that he had not instructed the manager to accept sub-standard coal, saying "people are under pressure to implicate others to justify state capture,"
