The African National Congress (ANC) in Parliament on Friday announced the appointment of a new chairperson for the legislature’s public enterprises committee, on the third day of its probe into allegations of widespread impropriety at South Africa’s national power utility, Eskom.

It said Lungi Mnganga-Gcabashe from the ANC would be the new chair, replacing acting chairperson Zukiswa Rantho.

Rantho has taken a hard line on corruption and pushed Parliament for more resources for an inquiry into allegations of state capture at the power utility.

She told ANA that the committee itself had to elect a new chair, and therefore the announcement would not immediately affect the work of the committee. MPs termed the announcement “very strange”.

So far the inquiry has heard that a ministerial adviser lured former Eskom CEO Brian Dames to a meeting with one of the Gupta brothers, and that the power utility’s board misrepresented the contractual terms of former CEO Brian Molefe to allow him to leave the company with a pension of R30-million.