Former Eskom chief executive Brian Molefe was sworn in as a member of Parliament for the ANC this morning.
Three sources close to the process told City Press that Molefe took his oath as an MP in deputy speaker Lechesa Tsenoli’s office this morning and proceeded to attend his first caucus meeting.
Parliament spokesperson Moloto Mothapo wouldn’t confirm Molefe’s membership of Parliament saying: “Only the speaker has authority to make such official announcement at a sitting of the house.”
In an unprecedented move last Friday, Parliament announced that Molefe had been nominated, to fill a vacancy on the North West list of ANC MPs, which is depleted.
It said presiding officers would determine a date for swearing him in as a member of Parliament.
What followed were questions over his membership of the party and whether he was indeed a member of the ANC in the North West province.
Some ANC branches claimed him to be their member while others rejected his alleged membership.
Molefe is expected to attend his first plenary session in the National Assembly when it meets at 2pm this afternoon.
Molefe, who has been a political activist since the 1980s, previously worked for two years in the office of the premier in the Limpopo, where he was responsible for strategic planning. He served as director of Airports Company South Africa from 2006 to 2007.
He resigned as chief executive of Eskom at the end of last year, after the release of the Public Protector’s State Capture report in which he was implicated for his close ties to the Gupta family. The Democratic Alliance has said that the swearing in of Molefe into Parliament is a bad move.
“The fact is that appointing Brian Molefe to any position in the 'finance family' presents a clear-and-present danger to the institutional independence of National Treasury and will be bad for South Africa,” the Democratic Alliance said today.
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