Eskom gave Tegeta prepayment on day Optimum purchase price was due, inquiry hears

A business rescue practitioner on Wednesday told the parliamentary inquiry into Eskom that the power utility agreed to pay Tegeta almost R600-million in advance for coal on the same day it became clear that the Gupta-affiliated company was short of that same sum to purchase the Optimum coal mine. “I think the timing looked suspicious, it certainly did not look fantastic,” Piers Marsden told Parliament’s committee on public enterprises of the meeting at which Eskom agreed to the advance payment.