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The Congress of South African Trade Unions has noted with concern the former Public Protector's report to Parliament which condemns African National Congress NEC member, Valli Moosa, for acting improperly and with a conflict of interest when Eskom, under his chairmanship, awarded a R38,5bn contract for the Medupi power station to the Hitachi consortium in which the ANC has an interest.

COSATU welcomes the report and congratulates Comrade Lawrence Mushwana for exposing the fact that ANC stood to benefit by up to R5,8bn through the 25% stake that its investment arm, Chancellor House, has in engineering company Hitachi Power Africa.

Comrade Mushwana found there was a conflict between Moosa's personal interest in the ANC (as a member of its national executive and its finance committee at the time) and his duty towards Eskom when the Eskom board awarded the boiler contract to the Hitachi consortium. He says that he "failed to manage the conflict of interests in compliance with the conflict of interest policy of Eskom and therefore acted improperly."

He had failed to declare the specific conflict of interest with regard to the tender, beyond a general declaration of interests made regularly by Eskom directors. Also, he failed to excuse himself from the board's deliberations. Both these failings could have resulted "in the reasonable perception that Mr Moosa was biased in respect of the ... award. As the chairperson it was reasonably expected of a person of the calibre of Mr Moosa to have led by example."

COSATU also agrees with the Public protector's recommendation that Public Enterprises Minister Barbara Hogan should "consider developing legislation to regulate the conducting of business between government entities and political parties". These is in line with COSATU's insistence that political and public representatives should not at the same time have business interests, but must choose between the two roles. It creates an inevitable conflict of interest.

The Public Protector's report also strengthens the federation's argument for a complete review of Eskom's proposed 25% a-year tariff increases for three years. Apart from its devastating consequences for consumers, inflation and job losses, and the revelation that NERSA was not informed of Eskom's secret tariff deals with big business customers, there is now a serious question mark against whether there were vested interests involved in supporting the increases.