The air force’s
Oryx and Rooivalk helicopters, which are manufactured
by Denel. File photo by Born/Gallo Images/The Times &
Sebabatso Mosamo/Sunday Times
The board of state-owned defence manufacturer Denel skipped a scheduled meeting with parliament’s standing committee on public accounts (Scopa) on Tuesday, leading chairperson Mkhuleko Hlengwa to compare it to other “rogue” state-owned enterprises.
The board was scheduled to brief the watchdog committee on the non-tabling of its annual report, its liquidity crisis and give an update on its fruitless and wasteful expenditure, among other pressing issues.
Hlengwa said the snub was a dereliction of duty and undermined parliament.
“We had an assurance of board representation and that didn’t happen,” he said. “This is the last instance of [Scopa] tolerating the Denel board not being here.”
Denel also came under fire in February, when the auditor general informed Scopa that the parastatal had been late with its external audit statements for two consecutive years. Its 2020-21 statements were 18 months late, while its 2021-22 statements were eight months late. During that meeting, Hlengwa said the company had displayed an absence of consequence management.
The company has, in the past five years, received taxpayer funded bailouts of R9 billion to escape financial distress, ensure financial sustainability and service debt.
It was the deputy minister of public enterprises, Obed Bapela, who on Tuesday had to convey the non-attendance of all board members to Scopa.
Bapela said that although the Denel chief executive and a team from the public enterprises department was present, “none of the board members could be found to come and attend”.
Hlengwa had received a letter from the Denel chairperson, Gloria Serobe, last week, saying she would not be able to attend the meeting. Bapela said Serobe had tried to ensure the attendance of other board members, “but unfortunately most of them are engaged or are travelling abroad, so there are no board members present in this meeting”.
The deputy minister said he knew that not having any board members at the meeting would be troublesome, so he gingerly asked for Hlengwa to “deal with [the issue]” before he made his opening remarks.
Hlengwa responded that an absence of any board members was “totally unacceptable”, given that the board was the accounting authority of Denel, not the executives. The meeting would not proceed without board representation, he said.
The committee had timeously let the Denel board know that it should make itself available for Tuesday’s meeting, in a letter on May 23, he said.
Scopa member Benedicta van Minnen said given that Denel had received bailouts of more than R9 billion, there were “nine billion reasons why the board should be here today”.
Hlengwa suspended the meeting, saying it would be held next week. He also asked, rhetorically, why the costs of the meeting should not be borne by board members in their personal capacities.