We stand behind our story.
The Daily News and The Star have noted Eskom’s statement and an attempt to undermine the report published last week about Bowmans’ status on the Eskom Database panel.
We stand by our story, and the facts in the story that Eskom has not disputed, nor refuted.
In its statement, Eskom accepts that Bowmans is not in the current panel of attorneys, which is the centre of the story.
The company did not provide any proof of the now alleged arrangement with the National Treasury.
If the National Treasury arrangement existed, the head of Legal, Nerina Otto, would not have been confused about the mandate and legality of the contract of Bowmans, as revealed in her email.
Furthermore, in November 2018, Eskom claims that there was an Executive Tender Committee decision, yet on cancellation of the Bowmans mandate in 2019, such mandate is not cited as a basis to allow them to continue.
Eskom further errs in their claim that the company’s responses were not published.
Within the report, we gave Eskom sufficient space and right of reply.
We have seen the Eskom tactic of throwing baseless accusatory remarks of a “disinformation campaign” against Independent Media before.
It is nothing but an attempt at deflecting from being held to account when caught engaging in questionable conduct.
Independent Media will continue to do its work without fear or favour, and will use its power to hold those in public office to account.
Eskom itself has admitted to the absence of Bowmans lawyers from the current panel of legal service providers.
Furthermore, facts reported by the Daily News and The Star with regards to misinformation published in the mainstream media, which stated that Jan Oberholzer had no knowledge of the cancellation of the Bowmans mandate as it was done behind his back by four unnamed executives, it has now been revealed and shown that Oberholzer actually signed the cancellation of the mandate.
We would like the public and our readers to take note that despite the defence advanced by Eskom on irregularities involving Bowmans, there was no evidence produced to rebut the allegations, except for merely stating the following:
"While Bowmans is not on Eskom’s current panel of attorneys, Bowmans continues to discharge ongoing mandates it received prior to the current panel appointments, under an arrangement specifically approved by National Treasury. In addition, on November 15, 2018, Eskom’s Executive Tender Committee resolved, among other things, ’to condone the decision to continue receiving legal services rendered by external legal firms under valid task orders outside the validity period of the approved panel against which the task orders were released’."
There is sufficient evidence at our disposal to show that since the termination of Bowmans’ mandate in July 2019, there was never any existing mandate.
Besides Otto’s email questioning the legality of Bowmans’ appointment, a letter from Bowmans to Eskom also makes a clear indication of what was the scope of their latest mandate which didn’t cover the investigation into Econ Oil matters.
We stand by our story, our brands and our journalist.
Daily News