Minister's way of dealing with state capture is to rotate the boards

Public Enterprises Minister, Lynne Brown told MPs today that in order to prevent boards of state-owned entities "to be captured" , she will rotate them.

The minister was answering questions to the portfolio committee on public enterprises on Eskom, Denel and Transnet where MPs raised concern about captured boards.

Brown had indicated to the committee she will appoint a new board for Eskom next month.

However, members of the committee expressed concern about the process to be followed to pick the new board and whether the appointments of the new SOE boards would be influenced by the Guptas.

This followed revelations in leaked emails that the Guptas allegedly influenced the appointments of Eskom and other boards in SOEs.

Brown said she will do her best to ensure the boards were independent.

“I hope this Eskom board will be truly independent. I will not be able to test who their friends are. There is a human element,” said Brown.

“The issue of the emails I haven’t seen any email that implicates any of the board members. All I know is what I read about in the newspapers. The CIPC (Companies and Intellectual Property Commission) writes to me about each one of them. I will meet with the CIPC next week. One way to act for me is to rotate the boards,” she said. 

Brown first raised the issue of rotating the boards a few months ago when allegations of state capture against Eskom emerged.

This related to some of the board members including former chairman Ben Ngubane and executives implicated in state capture.

Ngubane resigned from his position, and Zethembe Khoza was appointed acting chairperson.

Brown told MPs she will appoint a new board next month.

This would be at the time Eskom would hold a special annual general meeting to pick a new board.

Brown also said she wants the Special Investigating Unit to get to the bottom of corruption and wrongdoing at Eskom.

“Fruitless and wasteful expenditure are part of the issues of what constitute the SIU deep dive. The SIU will be able to do a deep dive of all investigations we have had,” said Brown.

This would include investigations by PricewaterHouseCoopers (PwC) and Dentons into corruption at Eskom.

The SIU will also look at the Trillian and McKinsey contracts. It would also look at the Tegeta contract.

The PwC investigation found that the R4bn contract awarded to Tegeta was irregular.