Cape Town - The Zondo commission has called for sweeping changes in the way members of the board of state-owned entities are appointed to prevent state capture.
This is one of the recommendations by Chief Justice Raymond Zondo in his state capture report on Eskom where he found that senior executives and certain companies had been involved in the looting of the power utility.
The report said some of the things happened and people got away with it because there was no accountability.
In his report Zondo said the changes to appointments should not be limited to the boards, but it should be extended to the appointment of CEOs and chief financial officers.
They were at the heart of the entities and also serve as board members where key decisions were taken.
The report had found that there was lack of accountability at Eskom during the time of state capture.
This led to the power utility losing billions of rand over the years.
But the culture of appointment of the boards and CEOs and CFOs needed to change, said the report.
“The way members of boards of state-owned companies are appointed cannot remain as it has been during all the years which have been covered by the investigation of the commission. The same applies to the appointment of chief executive officers and chief financial officers of these companies.
“The evidence heard by the commission has revealed quite clearly that part of the reason why some of the state-owned companies have performed as badly as they have and why some rely on government bailouts year in year out, is the calibre of some of the people who are appointed as members of the boards of these companies or who are their chief executive officers and chief financial officers,” said the report.
However, the report has also called for the state to take action and pursue criminal charges against those involved in corruption and other irregularities at Eskom.
It said when the new board came in in 2018, which was led by the late Jabu Mabuza, it found there had been a pervasive culture of corruption at the power utility.
It was time to start doing things differently as many people couldn’t be held accountable for their misdemeanours.
“All those Eskom officials who were party to or facilitated the acquisition by bringing pressure to bear on Glencore to dispose of its coal interests to the Guptas and were party to or facilitated payment of this very large sum of R659 million and the R1.68 billion guarantee are prima facie guilty of theft and ought to face criminal charges for such corruption related conduct,” the report stated.
siyabonga.mkhwanazi@inl.co.za
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