Home

Corruption case against Koko and others postponed to September

Reading Time: 3 minutes

The case of fraud, corruption and money laundering against former Eskom CEO, Matshela Koko, has been postponed to the 4th of September for further investigation. All the accused are out on bail.

Koko and seven others, including his wife and two step-daughters, appeared in the Middelburg Magistrate’s Court in Mpumalanga today.

Matshela Koko, his wife, two stepdaughters and the four others, were arrested last year in connection with a multi-billion Rand contract that was awarded to a Swiss company, Asea Brown Boveri (ABB), during the construction of the Kusile Power Station in 2015. It is alleged that the ABB company paid about R549 million to a company of which one of Koko’s stepdaughter is a shareholder.

Apparently that company then paid about R30 million to another Koko’s stepdaughter’s company, which later paid about R14 million to Koko’s wife. During their appearance in court today, the state requested that the matter be postponed for further investigation. Koko’s lawyer, Advocate Brad Osborne, accused the state of delaying the case.

“The investigation commenced and the docket was registered in July 2017. The accused were then arrested and brought to court on the 27th of October 2022. That is five year after the commence of the investigation. The investigation was in the media for a long time. The state took five year to secure the attendance of the accused. It is clear that this was an investigation driven prosecution. After waiting for five year, one had expected that at the time of the arrest of the accused, the investigation should have been completed.”

Witch-hunt

Speaking to the SABC outside court, Koko says his arrest is a witch-hunt.

When I testified in the Zondo Commission I said to Chief Justice Zondo, follow the evidence and don’t target people. I feel targeted, I don’t belong here and I should not be here. And if I’m here, I should not be told I should come back in five months, then when I come back in five months, I am told come back in another five months. By the way, the expectation is that in five months I would be told to come back in another five months. I’m happy my bail condition is relaxed by that should begin to tell you about the confidence of the state. To be honest with you If you remember when they were here they were very arrogant and bullish. You had a bunch of white people congregating that Mr Matshela Koko is arrested and that arrogance is not here today.”

Matshela Koko says his arrest and charges are a witch-hunt:

Strong case

The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) Investigating Directorate spokesperson, Sindisiwe Seboka, maintains that they have a strong case against Koko and his co-accused.

“The request for the postponement is for the finalisation of the investigations. We also want to cite as the investigating directorate that in most cases of corruption and fraud they are lengthy so they require a lot of investigation and a lot of other documentation to for part of he docket.”

NPA’s investigation into Matshela Koko and seven others over Eskom contract: Kyle Cowan:

Author

MOST READ