Former Eskom CEO Matshela Koko has breathed a sigh of relief after the Middleburg Magistrate’s Court struck his R2.2 billion Kusile fraud and corruption case off the roll.
The magistrate said yesterday the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) must provide a letter from the NDPP if it wants to re-enroll the case.
Koko was arrested in October last year along with his wife Mosima, and his stepdaughters Koketso Aren and Thato Choma.
Also in the dock were Eskom project director at Kusile Hlupheka Sithole, lawyer Johannes Coetzee, Watson Seswai, and Lese’tsa Johannes Mutchinya who were facing charges of fraud, corruption, and money laundering relating to the irregular awarding of multibillion-rand contracts for work at the Kusile Power Station to companies linked to Koko’s friends and family.
Koko, who has over the years protested his innocence, said he has been singled out for persecution to settle scores against him and his family.
On Tuesday following his acquittal, Koko in a statement shared on social media also accused the ANC, as well as President Cyril Ramaphosa, of having “weaponised” the NPA.
Koko said the past six years have been stressful for him and his co-accused, including his family.
“We are living in crisis times as is well known. The past six years have been tragic. The prospect of a South Africa without the ANC in charge looms larger.
“They (ANC) have weaponised the National Prosecution Authority against its children. A Cabinet decision was taken on January 18, 2018, to dismiss me from Eskom because the Cabinet in its wisdom decided I was corrupt. President Cyril Ramaphosa admitted on August 11, 2021, at the Zondo Commission that he fired me, but it was a joint decision of the Cabinet,” Koko said on Tuesday.
Koko indicated that the NPA has been used to charge him by nook or crook, which is why the case against him has fallen flat.
“The NPA misdirected itself by charging me. It did not act without fear, favour or prejudice. They were doing somebody a favour. What is hurtful to me is that the NPA was commended by well-respected constituencies in our society for the unlawful arrests.
“I am convinced that South Africans have a very exaggerated sense of the rule of law. They don’t think my family has rights as in the Bill of Rights. This is a persecution. That is why the banks have terminated my family’s bank accounts because of this criminal matter. The aim is to destroy and liquidate my family without the benefit of a fair trial. I have been rendered stateless in my country of birth,” he said.
He said he and his family have been forced to operate without the luxury of bank accounts, adding that this was tantamount to hate crime.
He said the millions of pages which were cited as central to delays and postponements of the case were nothing more than delay tactics aimed at tarnishing his image even further.
“They (the media) saw nothing comical when the NPA obfuscated about the docket of more than a billion pages. The narrative that I am corrupt is too attractive for the media to be objective,” he said.
Attempts to get comment from the NPA were still unsuccessful at the time of going to print.
The Star