Bonang Mohale, CEO of BLSA
JOHANNESBURG – BUSINESS Leadership South Africa (BLSA) has called for a “review” of Lynne Brown’s position as Minister of Public Enterprises following the contentious retention of some executives at Eskom.
The organisation expressed “great shock and utter dismay” at Brown’s appointment of Matshela Koko to the position of Head: Power Generation and Prish Govender as Acting Head of Group Capital at the beleaguered power utility.
This decision, the BLSA said, was similar to the illegal re-appointment of Brian Molefe as Eskom Chief Executive Officer.
“It flies in the face of complying with the rule of law, holding executives finally accountable and efforts by business and labour to work with government in restoring confidence in our economy which has suffered serial downgrades,” said Bonang Mohale, CEO of BLSA.
Mohale pointed out Koko had been undergoing an internal disciplinary inquiry of allegations of failure to declare conflict of interest and had yet to answer satisfactorily to these claims in Parliament.
“Not only is his reappointment inappropriate but also diabolical and a snub to millions of South Africans who are victims of the state capture project which has diverted billions of taxpayer’s rands into private pockets.”
Mohale said the decision showed Brown’s “poor grasp of governance.”
“She continues with absolute impunity to ensure that State Owned Enterprises under her control are still systematically saddled with hurriedly promoted, usually untested, and largely incompetent and often corrupt ‘cadre deployments’ where performance is not even expected.”
BLSA also denounced the retaining of Zethembe Khoza as chairman of the Eskom board.
“As BLSA, we reiterate our call for a complete overhaul of the Eskom board members and executives who are captured,” Mohale said.
– CAJ News
