Matshela Koko is the key: How a Swedish-Swiss energy company colluded with then acting Eskom CEO in billion-rand Kusile deal

4 May 2023

Telephone records, internal company emails and text messages have provided the National Prosecuting Authority with a detailed picture of how former acting-Eskom CEO Matshela Koko was actively wooed by Swedish-Swiss robotics company ABB, and allegedly played a key role in providing information to the company ahead of a crucial bid award in 2015.

Matshela Koko is facing corruption charges along with several representatives from ABB’s local and European divisions who worked for over a year to ensure the company was awarded the tender for Control and Instrumentation (C&I tender) at Eskom’s Kusile project.

Read more in Daily Maverick: Eskom Intelligence Files

The details of the NPA’s Investigative Directorate probe were revealed in a recent asset forfeiture case heard in the Gauteng Division of the High Court in Johannesburg. The court agreed to the seizure of more than R500-million in assets from former employees of ZAABB, the South African arm of ABB, and Impulse International, a company in which Koko’s stepdaughter was a director.

Koko, for his part, told Daily Maverick he was awaiting his court date, along with the full docket and charge sheet and added that the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) had set itself up for failure.

Among the affidavits submitted as part of the forfeiture case is one by former ABB South Africa and Africa Business Unit manager, Götz Dietrich Wolff, who has agreed to act as a witness under Section 204 of the Criminal Procedure Act. Hawks investigator Wilhem Schreiber also submitted an affidavit in the civil case, detailing his investigation thus far.

Schreiber alleges that Koko “abused the trust vested in him and used his position and power to capture Eskom for his own personal enrichment and agenda. For this, he needed a company which epitomised good governance, high ethical values, and a solid partner to get the work done. That company was ZAABB.”

In his affidavit, Wolff details how senior managers in ZAABB blatantly ignored the company’s manuals and training on ethics and good governance, aggressively going after Koko as a potential “key” to ensuring they won the contract.

“ZAABB’s success in winning the C&I tender was to the best of my knowledge brought about by a scheme involving primarily certain of my fellow employees from ZAABB, including myself, employees from other entities in the ABB group of companies, a company called Leago Strategic Services and its CEO Mr Thabo Mokwena and Matshela Koko of Eskom,” Wolff wrote.

In mid-2013, the company became aware that Eskom would likely remove competitor Alstom from the Kusile project. Siemens was in the running to replace them. According to Wolff's affidavit, Markus Bruegmann, a senior executive based in the company’s Zurich office, had told the South African team they needed to make inroads at Eskom.

‘Matshela is the key’

According to Wolff's affidavit, Bruegmann had tried to arrange a meeting with Brian Dames, who was Eskom’s CEO from 2010 to March 2014, but failed. He then identified a new player, telling the South Africa team to try to meet Koko urgently.

In one internal email that is quoted in Wolff's affidavit and written in German, Bruegmann said: “Ingo please try to meet M. Koko during VGB. You can easily identify him, he is the only colored man in this event (sic). He is a member of the VGB committee, maybe Gerhard can help you. Matshela is the key… get him on our booth.”

According to Wolff, Bruegmann was able to strike up a relationship with Koko which was later taken over by what Wolff calls the head of the “Capture Team”, a part of the company’s sales department aimed at capturing new business.

While the team’s name did not directly denote State Capture, their actions had all the hallmarks. The team was led by Sunil Vip who flew into South Africa several times, allegedly to meet Koko.

“I cannot recall the specific dates that Bruegmann met with Koko, but I remember being impressed with the frequent and direct access that Bruegmann enjoyed to Koko. This close relationship was later overtaken by more direct relations between (Sunil) Vip and Koko during 2015,” Wolff alleges in his affidavit.

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Bruegmann and Vip have been charged alongside Koko for their alleged roles in corruption linked to the ZAABB deal.

Asked to comment on the nature of his relationship with Bruegmann and Vip, Koko told Daily Maverick: “The state has made allegations about my relationship with Bruegmann and Vip. They must provide evidence that supports their allegations. It is not up to me to make up the state’s case – in the Daily Maverick, nogal. Daily Maverick is not an extension of the Independent Directorate.”

He added that “Bruegmann and Vip are consummate and upright professionals. Throughout my relationship with them as ABB Executives, they have always acted with integrity.”

The Leago scheme

Koko’s version is likely to be tested against that of Wolff, who has admitted to witnessing and being party to wrongdoing in the process of ZAABB winning the C&I tender.

The tender was advertised in 2014 – around the same time Bruegmann introduced Mokwena to Wolff and the South African team, as a potential partner. Wolff said he was surprised that Bruegmann had made the introduction as he was based in Zurich and did not usually deal with local contractors or suppliers.

Investigator Schreiber says Mokwena, who owned the Leago Group, was a close associate of Koko. He allegedly acted as an influencer and information broker as the tender process unfolded in what investigators describe as “the Leago scheme”.

Wolff says he was unimpressed by Leago’s capabilities, and their inclusion as a Social Development and Localisation partner would push up the bid price by more than R130-million.

“I assumed that a part of whatever would be paid to Leago would go towards the ‘cost’ of influencing decisions at Eskom, including the award of the C&I contract,” Wolff said. He added that Vip and Mokwena were having one-on-one meetings.

“When I asked Vip what he was discussing with Mokwena, he would generally give vague and evasive answers and told me very little,” Wolff said.

But the information obtained in these discussions with Mokwena and Koko appears to have equipped the company with sufficient information on what Eskom expected ahead of the bid discussions.

According to Schreiber, Koko and Mokwena knew each other well – the two men allegedly went to university together and Koko was a groomsman at Mokwena’s wedding.

It appears the “Leago scheme” was meant to see Mokwena’s company paid by ZAABB as a subcontractor, and then kickbacks would be sent to Koko.

“Koko was mistaken regarding the trustworthiness of Mokwena and Leago since, after Leago’s appointment by ZAABB, Leago and Mokwena allegedly decided to keep its illicit gains without paying Koko his share,” Schreiber alleged.

As part of the investigation, a forensic case analyst has looked at the calls between Koko and Mokwena over several months.

“He concluded that from May 2014, there were numerous cell phone exchanges between Koko and Mokwena. The communication reduced dramatically during May 2015 (when Leago entered into an agreement with ZAABB) and spiked again in June 2015. We submit that the reason for that is that there was a falling out between Koko and Mokwena about the sharing of the advance payment,” Schreiber said.

Wolff also claimed that during the crucial stage of the bid negotiation, Vip appeared to be getting inside information about what would be required.

“I have been advised that our proposal has too many commercial deviations, which seem to be a negative aspect of our proposal. Moreover, the language, the way they have been presented, seems also not to be adequate. Therefore we should review them before the start of the negotiation and possibly remove some of them and rephrase the others,” Vip wrote in an internal email in November 2015.

In December he told colleagues that there would be a highly anticipated board meeting that would decide the fate of the deal.

“I have been advised to be patient, refrain from any hectic activities and await the events as they unfold,” Vip said.

He also told the ZAABB team that the tender should not exceed R2.2-billion in the final negotiation phase.

Wolff alleged that “the information recorded in Vip’s emails came from Mokwena and from Koko”.

In early 2015, ZAABB was awarded the contract, despite Koko being suspended in March of that year. In May 2015, Bruegmann had allegedly told Wolff that “it was very important that advance payment under the Leago contract be made right away”.

“I told him that the advance payment was only due the following month under the contract with Leago, but he told me that it had to be made as soon as possible and then said that ‘this is important for our relationship to No 1’,” Wolff said.

Wolff adds that Bruegmann had previously referred to Koko as “No 1”.

“Prior to this conversation with Bruegmann, I had not been as explicitly aware of what portion of the Leago contract was intended for Koko and this explicit knowledge brought home to me what I had gotten myself into.”

Wolff claims he later found out that Mokwena had double-crossed Koko, keeping the advance payment for himself.

‘No Stalingrad approach’

This resulted in the creation of a second scheme, known as the “The Impulse Scheme”, which saw ZAABB subcontract Impulse International. Koko’s stepdaughter, Koketso Aren, was a director at the company.

Koko, Aren, Koko’s wife Mosima, Bruegmann, Vip and Mokwena are all facing criminal charges for their roles in the alleged scheme, which the NPA is prosecuting under organised crime legislation. The case has been postponed to 4 September.

Koko told Daily Maverick he was awaiting his court date, along with the full docket and charge sheet.

“I was arrested on October 27, 2022. It was a six-year investigation that led to my arrest. To my surprise, the state asked for a five-month postponement notwithstanding that mine was an investigation-led arrest.

“I went back to court five months later hoping for a signed charge sheet and a docket. That would tell me what case I must answer. I got nothing. The state asked for another five months’ postponement. I expect the signed charge sheet and the docket when I return to court on September 4, 2023, and nothing less,” he said.

“There will be no Stalingrad approach, but the NPA is not entitled to arrest me and then take more than 10 months investigating when they have had the benefit of six years of investigation and a ‘slam-dunk’ affidavit from Gotz Wolff, whom I don’t know and I have never met,” he added.

Koko added that the NPA had set itself up for failure in his case.

“If you think Nulane’s matter was an embarrassment, then you have not seen much.” DM

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South Africa

‘Matshela is the key’

The Leago scheme

‘No Stalingrad approach’