Answers sought on Eskom contract for Zuma adviser

The DA is submitting an application in terms of the Promotion of Access to Information Act (Paia) to gain access to tender documents that resulted in President Jacob Zuma’s energy adviser Silas Zimu receiving a R149m contract from Eskom, the DA said yesterday, according to a report on the IoL site. The DA’s Natasha Mazzone says the party is deeply concerned at media reports that seven months after Zimu’s appointment as Zuma’s adviser on energy, Cape Gate Marepha, a company at which he is a non-executive director, was awarded a contract to supply Eskom with wiring. ‘It is shocking that either Zimu, as a political adviser to the President, failed to declare his interests, or that President Zuma thought it acceptable to keep an adviser who simultaneously profits from public spending in the energy sector,’ she said. The DA would therefore also submit parliamentary questions to Zuma about his knowledge of Zimu's business interests, specifically which interests were declared to the President and which were not. The DA believed that Eskom should answer about Zimu’s direct conflict of interests and should do so by supplying the full documentary record of the tender decision. The DA would especially be interested to see to what extent Zimu's association with Zuma was documented.

Full IoL report