A letter from Sasol chief executive Pieter Cox to two senior government ministers over the nomination of a black female director to the liquid fuel giant’s board illustrates how fearful the company is of the presidency.
Cox, who was slated by President Thabo Mbeki last year for suggesting that black empowerment posed a business risk, wrote to Minister of Minerals and Energy Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka and Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel last week to “clarify matters” about his company’s clash with the Public Investment Commission (PIC).
He defended Sasol shareholders’ failure to elect World Petroleum Congress CE Imogen Mkhize, a PIC nominee, to the Sasol board at the company’s annual general meeting (AGM) last week and asked both ministers to convey the contents of his message to the Presidency.
The letter was sent on Wednesday last week. In a subsequent climbdown on Friday, Sasol announced that Mkhize would join the Sasol board in January, replacing Jan Fourie, who is retiring.
Sasol this week confirmed Cox had sent the letter to both ministers the day after the company’s AGM, but refused to discuss the contents of his letter.
Sasol’s spokesperson Johann van Rheede said: “It is a very sad day when the contents of a one-on-one letter written by the CEO of a South African company to two ministers in the country ends up in the hands of the media. We at Sasol can only express our dismay and profound disappointment.”
The row between Sasol and the PIC erupted last week after the PIC reacted angrily to the defeat of Mkhize’s nomination, describing it as “a major blow to transformation”.
The PIC, which invests government employees’ pension funds, is Sasol’s largest local investor, with a 13,28% stake worth R10,5-billion. Cox’s letter to Mlambo-Ngcuka and Manuel was seen by some in the government as an attempt to avert another attack on Sasol by Mbeki.
Sasol raised the ire of Mbeki last year when the company reported to the New York Stock Exchange that empowerment posed a business risk. In his letter, Cox was at pains to point out that his company was not opposed to the appointment of Mkhize, but that it was obliged to follow a selection process in accordance with corporate governance standards set by the JSE Securities Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange.
He told the two ministers “in confidence” that his company had been identifying and selecting a competent black woman as a non-executive director. He said his company had discussed the selection process with PIC’s head Brian Molefe, but Molefe was unwilling to allow the process to run its course and sought to displace one of the incumbent directors at the company’s annual general meeting.
Cox said his company had asked former justice minister Penuell Maduna , who is Sasol’s senior adviser, and Max Sisulu, Sasol’s general manager, to persuade Molefe to withdraw the nomination of Mkhize at the AGM, but their intervention was unsuccessful.
After the appointment of Mkhize last Friday, Molefe said it was the shareholders who should call the shots on what happened in the company, and that the company’s board could not implement shareholders’ proposals only when it felt like it.