The estranged Eastern Cape province has been rocked by another shock move by that province’s government, apparently in an effort to weed out corruption in government departments and parastatals.
Late on Thursday night, provincial economics minister Andre de Wet sacked the entire Eastern Cape Development Corporation (ECDC) board and suspended the corporation’s chief executive officer, Mcebisi Jonas.
The axing comes in the wake of a forensic investigation that de Wet commissioned into the sale of Mpekweni resort in Port Alfred during June this year to a business consortium for R9-million — when other bidders were apparently set to pay more.
The chief financial officer, John Cerff and the executive manager of property and development, Don Maclean were also suspended.
The new ECDC board, to be appointed during the coming week, will be chaired by Advocate Naledi Burwana-Bisiwe.
Jonas told the Mail & Guardian Online that he is ”shocked” by this move and was given ”no reasons”.
”They [government officials] walked into my office and told me that in terms of the Public Finance Management Act I am being placed on cautionary suspension together with my colleagues,” he said.
Cerff said that he wouldn’t comment until he had received further information about his suspension.
The ECDC board chairperson, Thembela Sofisa, was notified personally by telephone by De Wet that they would be fired. She said ”there was no correspondence apart from the phone call”.
This blow follows warnings by the provincial government that they would be chopping large tranches off the budgets of the provinces industrial development zones, including the national government’s flagship project, Coega.
The ECDC is primarily tasked with securing investment for the province and as such is also the parent parastatal of the Coega Development Corporation.
Since the sacking of finance MEC Enoch Godongwana two weeks ago the government appears to have embarked on a cleaning operation to get rid of graft in the province.
However, Lungile Mondi, the chief financial manager at the Industrial Development Corporation said that sweeping moves like this would simply lead to ”instability” and ”sap investor confidence in the province”.
Alistair Ruiters, the director general in the Department of Trade and Industry said that he had not yet seen the charge sheet but that the ”ECDC is unrelated to the national government and the sacking of the board is an internal matter”.