Eskom’s former CEO Jacob Maroga — who last week lost his court bid for reinstatement — has now appealed the ruling.
Maroga had filed a civil claim against Eskom, its acting CEO and chairperson Mpho Makwana, as well as then-minister of public enterprises Barbara Hogan in January. He asked that he either be reinstated as CEO of Eskom or that he be paid R85-million in compensation for being dismissed. He also accused Hogan of acting unethically and of colluding with the Eskom board by saying that he had resigned.
Eskom maintains that Maroga had offered to resign and that the board had accepted his resignation, while Maroga argued that he had never offered to resign and that, even if he did, it had been “conditional”.
Dismissing Maroga’s version of events as a “fabrication”, Judge Thokozile Masipa on December 11 ruled in favour of Eskom and ordered the former CEO to pay the costs of the trial.
However, in his application for leave to appeal on Wednesday, Maroga said that Masipa had erred in her judgement and “should have found that on the respondents’ own version there was no such offer to resign”.
Maroga said in his application that Masipa should have found, on the respondents’ own version, the alleged offer to resign was not free from qualifications, but was “dependant upon conditions or occurrence of certain events”.
“The learned judge erred in dismissing the application. The learned judge should have found that there was no evidence of voluntary resignation by the applicant which was accepted by the first respondent’s board of directors. In the circumstances, the learned judge should have granted the application,” said Maroga in his appeal.