Trillian hits back at McKinsey in argument over Eskom payment

Gupta-linked Trillian Capital Partners does not appear to have any formal contracts to explain why Eskom paid it R495m. But it does have e-mails and recollections of conversations with McKinsey staff showing "that it has only billed for work that it had completed and was entitled to".

An earlier version of this story said Trillian's eight-point statement on Friday essentially called McKinsey’s statement to advocate Geoff Budlender a lie — to which McKinsey responded by saying it did not interpret Trillian's statement as an attack on its statement.

McKinsey told Budlender it "did not work on any projects on which Trillian worked as a [supplier development partner] or a subcontractor".

On Friday, McKinsey said this needed to be read carefully because it did not say it never worked alongside Trillian at Eskom, but that it did not appoint Trillian as a subcontractor. Furthermore, it did not consider Trillian a sham company, and did praise the work Trillian did as claimed in its statement on Friday.

Trillian said in Friday’s statement: "In various steering committee meetings where McKinsey had prepared such ‘Steercom packs’, the Trillian team was recognised as the supplier development partner. The steering committee meetings were a requirement of the [master service agreement] between Eskom and McKinsey."

Trillian claimed to have an e-mail from the McKinsey team congratulating its unnamed "engagement team manager" for "amazing turnaround and step change at the client in a short amount of time".

The "engagement team manager" was referred to by McKinsey’s staff as "the go-to guy also when it comes to sorting out issues workstream leads are having with managing their streams", Trillian said.

Whereas McKinsey told Budlender that it had told Trillian it had not been selected as its supplier development partner, adding "we consent to such correspondence being shared with you by Trillian pursuant to your investigation", Trillian claimed on Friday to have documentation showing the opposite.

"Documentation proves that McKinsey were aware of and endorsed Trillian’s work throughout the implementation of the [master service agreement] for which Trillian has billed," Friday’s statement said.

McKinsey said in response to the earlier version of this story: "Eskom paid McKinsey and Trillian separately in respect to work on its Corporate Plan and Turnaround Programme (the latter referred to in the Budlender Report as the ‘MSA’). All payments made to Trillian were paid directly by Eskom and presumably governed by Eskom's rules and processes for approval of third-party payments.  

"McKinsey was never asked to approve any payments made by Eskom to Trillian on Eskom's Turnaround Programme. Any such payments would have been reviewed and approved by Eskom, based on its assessment of the work performed by Trillian.”

Read the full statement from Trillian here:

With Reuters