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Labour court Judge Connie Prinsloo reserved judgment on Thursday on the increasingly convoluted case of Brian Molefe’s retirement, rehiring and firing as CEO of Eskom.
Molefe was in the labour court this week to fight his “dismissal” on June 2, which was affected by the rescinding of his reappointment on May 11.
This reappointment was, in turn, done through a rescinding of Molefe’s early retirement agreement reached with the Eskom board late last year.
That agreement tried to give him a R30 million pension which, it turns out, the Eskom Pension and Provident Fund actually couldn’t give him.
Arguing that he was unlawfully dismissed, however, only makes sense if he was legally the CEO at the time. That is only true if the reappointment in May was legal.
The crux of Molefe’s argument is that his “reappointment” was not really a reappointment in the legal sense because he never really retired – because his retirement was conditional on the R30 million.
“My request for early retirement was intricately linked to the pension benefits flowing therefrom,” said Molefe.
During the case Molefe has taken an increasingly belligerent stance towards Public Enterprises Minister Lynne Brown, who he accuses of firing him unlawfully due to “political considerations”.
He also slammed her conflicting statements on his reappointment as “expedient”.
Brown, at first, followed Molefe’s line that he in fact never legally retired. However, in the labour court she said he did.
Molefe on Thursday asked the court to allow factual issues to be sorted out in another forum – arbitration.
The legality of Molefe’s supposed reappointment in May is the subject of a DA and EFF application to the high court where the opposition parties say he could not legitimately have been reappointed.
The two opposition parties this week successfully argued that they be allowed to intervene in the labour court case as well.
Only then did Molefe’s lawyers ask for arbitration instead.
