Acting Transnet CEO Mohammed Mahomedy. (Delwyn Verasamy/M&G)
Transet’s acting group chief executive, Mohammed Mahomedy, is set to take the stand on Wednesday when the judicial commission of inquiry into state capture resumes in Parktown, Johannesburg.
The commission has been investigating allegations of state capture, corruption and fraud since August 2018.
After probing state-run power utility Eskom, Bosasa and other entities, the inquiry turned its attention to freight rail group Transnet in early May. The group’s chairperson Popo Molefe, earlier testified that Transnet was ground zero for state capture.
He referred to former executives Brian Molefe, Siyabonga Gama and Anoj Singh as the “architects of capture”.
Molefe told the inquiry that corruption at Transnet was “endemic”.
“It has very long claws and it has very wide tentacles. It is just spanning the entire landscape of our business,” he said, adding that the group’s new board has started to make headway in the fight against fraud and graft.
Last week Peter Volmink, Transnet’s executive head of governance, testified that in the past when a Transnet contract was classified as confidential, it could bypass much of the usual oversight process.
This, said Volmink, “created huge risk for the organisation at the time”. — Fin24