THE Treasury is holding on to a report into the coal contract...

THE Treasury is holding on to a report into the coal contract Eskom awarded to the Gupta-owned Tegeta Exploration and Resources, saying the document is still a draft.

In May 2016, the Treasury chief procurement officer Kenneth Brown told Parliament’s finance committee that Eskom’s coal contracts were being reviewed.

This followed the February 2016 announcement by Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan that all state contracts worth more than R10m were going to be reviewed.

On May 12, DA MP David Maynier filed a request under the Promotion of Access to Information Act for access to Brown’s reports on the coal contracts.

Treasury deputy information officer Stadi Mngomezulu acknowledged receiving Maynier’s application, but wrote: "Please note that the requested information contains commercial information of third parties."

In terms of the law, the third parties concerned had been informed of the request and were given 21 days "to state why the disclosure of the record should be refused or give a written consent for the disclosure of the information", said Mngomezulu.

Last week, Mngomezulu told Maynier the report on the contracts was still in draft form.

"Response was received from Tegeta Exploration and Resources. Access to the requested information is refused on the basis that the report is not yet finalised.

"The National Treasury is of the view that the disclosure of the information should be considered once the report is finalised," wrote Mngomezulu.

Maynier on Thursday said: "The report is likely to reveal skulduggery involving the coal contracts at Eskom. I strongly suspect that National Treasury are exploiting a loophole in the legislation to withhold the report of the review of the coal contracts at Eskom.

"Why would National Treasury approach third parties — including Tegeta Exploration and Resources and Eskom — to comment on the disclosure of a report which had not been finalised?

"And why did National Treasury take 51 days to determine that their own report had not been finalised?" Maynier said. "I don’t buy National Treasury’s story on the release of the report."

Maynier said it was imperative to get to the bottom of the coal contracts and he had submitted another request for access to the report. He vowed to continue doing this until the report was "crowbarred" out of Treasury.

Eskom spokesman Khulu Phasiwe said the utility was not aware the investigation had been completed and that Treasury was correct in that draft reports should not be made public.

Requests to Treasury for detailed information on the investigation went unanswered.

However, spokeswoman Phumza Macanda said on Thursday there were some subjects Treasury was uncomfortable discussing in public and chose not to answer, citing the need to protect the integrity and sensitivity of the ongoing probe.

http://www.bdlive.co.za/business/energy/2016/07/22/da-cries-foul-over-eskom-coal-report