ROB ROSE: A bribe by any other name
Just Coal’s Joe Singh isn’t the first to claim he had no option but to pay a bribe as the cost of staying in business. It’s a laughable argument
Times are so tough in Jacob Zuma’s shadow state that even men of the cloth have no other option but to pay bribes just for the privilege of staying in business. This is the tale of Pastor Joe Singh, a man who reports say described how his son was "raised from the dead" in 2015 after a near-drowning, who is now arguing implausibly that he is simply another innocent soul led into temptation by the nest of vipers inside Eskom. Singh is also, in all likelihood, the wealthiest person in Middelburg, a devout industrial and farming town in Mpumalanga of less than 300,000 residents. It has been around since 1864, longer than Joburg. Besides running the nonprofit Kingdom Leadership Centre, Singh is the CEO of a company called Just Coal which, until recently, was selling coal to Eskom. But in court papers, Singh says Eskom torpedoed his R8bn contract because of the "personal agendas" of the (now suspended) acting CEO Matshela Koko. Singh then "donated" R500,000 to the ANC Youth League (ANCYL)...
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