A tribunal set up to recover looted funds has ruled that R11.5-million held in a bank account linked to a suspended senior Eskom manager be forfeited to the state.

In a judgment handed down on Monday, Special Tribunal Judge Thina Siwendu ruled that Petrus Mazibuko, a suspended senior manager in the power utility's coal operations, his brother Shadrak Mazibuko, and their company, Thephunokheja Projects, broke the law in accepting bribes.

Siwendu ruled that all the funds in the bank account of Thephunokheja Projects – which was said to be in the "cupboard and home improvement business" - immediately be transferred to the Special Investigating Unit (SIU).

Thephunokheja Projects was found to have received repeated payments from Commodity Logistix Managers Africa (CLM), a registered Eskom supplier of coal, and a company called Thembathlo, between 2019 and early 2021. It did not have any other source of funds.

CLM had responded to a tender to transport coal for Eskom in June of 2018, which it won. A few months later, in entered into a joint venture with Thephunokheja and started making payments into the group's bank account.

Siwendu ruled there were no good reason for the payments to have been made. 

She said that Petrus Mazibuko's attempted defence - that he didn't know that CLM and Thephunokheja Projects were doing business with Eskom - "cannot be believed".  

As an employee of Eskom, Mazibuko would have had to declare his interests in Thephunokheja, which he did not do.

"He also did not obtain written authority to conduct outside work or permission to receive additional remuneration over and above his salary at Eskom," she said.