Minister of Public Enterprises Barbara Hogan was working on filling vacant top spots in state-owned enterprises (SOE), her spokesperson said on Thursday.
”The process for the appointment of board members and CEOs for the SOE you mentioned is underway and announcements will be made in due course,” said Ayanda Shezi in response to emailed questions.
She explained that Hogan, as the shareholder representative on behalf of government, is responsible for the appointment of the SOE board members, including chairpersons. She recommends appointment of these board members to the Cabinet.
The boards recruit and recommend chief executive officer candidates to Hogan for appointment, after which the preferred candidate is presented to the Cabinet.
”The criteria for appointment will vary depending on the specific needs of the SOE and various factors are considered, including the SOE’s mandate, government’s strategic intent, skills and demographic composition of the board. The candidate that best meets the criteria and the relevant factors affecting that particular SOE is appointed, and once appointed, is given the required support to best effect the job,” Shezi said.
Institute of Security studies director Hennie van Vuuren said the current vacant posts should be filled speedily.
”We do need to see some clarity around the leadership of parastatals given their role in service delivery and the large budgets allocated to them by the state,” said Van Vuuren.
Individuals or poorly-performing executive directors who no longer have the trust of their own staff and of the boards who appointed them must be moved out and new individuals should be appointed. There are question marks over the chief executive officer positions at the South African Broadcasting Corporation, Eskom, Transnet Freight Rail, Armscor and South African Airways.
Eskom lost both its chief executive, Jacob Maroga, and its board chairperson, Bobby Godsell, in a week.
The Black Management Forum (BMF) believes the vacancies are the result of an ”assault on black professionals”, driven by a covert anti-transformation and a racist agenda.
But, Van Vuuren said this was ”disingenuous” as the primary shareholders represented the black electorate.
”One has to ask if the issue is about race, whether it is a red herring, or whether the BMF members represent vested interests.”
He said people in top positions would have complex organisations to run and would almost always have to deal with the results of a legacy of previous leadership, or apartheid.
”One can measure performance in the jobs as to how they respond to those challenges. Some boards are aware of the challenges, but where it is very clear that where they have failed, it is imperative that a signal is sent to all staff in those organisations, where there is failure in governance, that this will not be tolerated.”
”The Maroga case represents a potential watershed, because we haven’t seen him walking away with a massive golden handshake, and we’ve seen that happening too often over the last couple of years.
”We shouldn’t read [the Eskom developments] as purely negative news. We have to clean out leadership of SOEs that are not performing, and have effective management. We have been seeing the beginning of a different way of doing things. It is going to focus on the competence of individuals.”
Lynn McGregor, a senior research fellow at the University of Stellenbosch, said it was vital to fill the senior positions at ”infrastructure” companies.
”If any of those parastatals fail, the economy is at risk,” she said.
The psychological impact of employees is also influenced.
Said National Union of Mineworkers’ spokesperson Lesiba Seshoka: ”The effect of course is that people get demoralised because there is no leadership. There is no single entity that can survive without leadership.”
Staffers were not worried about potential job losses as a new broom sweeps clean, believing they would be protected by unions.
”If there’s anyone who wants to cut jobs of our members, we will meet him on the shop floor.”
McGregor added: ”I think it’s very important that those positions are filled … you need a CEO who can communicate correctly and relate to government to explain what the real positions are so that they can make sure there is a sensible strategy.” – Sapa