A nongovernment panel, appointed by President Jacob Zuma after Ms Hogan and Mr Gordhan had already been asked by the Cabinet to do the job, will now conduct the only such review. This is despite Mr Zuma promising — when he announced his intention of appointing the external panel in March — that both reviews would continue and that both sets of findings would be considered by the Cabinet.
The role of state corporations is a hot topic in the tripartite alliance, and a source of tension among African National Congress (ANC) leaders.
The party’s leftist allies have been critical of the running of many of the entities, the composition of their boards, and their serving business interests instead of the state’s development needs. There are also concerns that state entities have served as vehicles for enrichment for party leaders through lucrative tenders.
Leadership crises at Transnet and Eskom saw ANC leaders and Cabinet ministers pitted against one another. At the time, Ms Hogan spoke out against political meddling in state-owned enterprises, arguing that their CEOs should be held accountable only by their boards.
The dropping of her investigation, which was also intended to report on the future role and mandate of state corporations, could mean that her views on corporate governance and a hands-off role for politicians will not win out.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) took issue with the decision to halt the Hogan-Gordhan probe yesterday, saying it exposed the fact that the government had “no interest in plugging the gaping hole left in the Treasury by a fundamentally flawed financial model”.
“At the height of the financial crisis, with tax revenue heavily under pressure, leakage from the Treasury resulting from poorly managed parastatals ran into hundreds of billions in the form of bail- outs, loans and guarantees,” said DA MP Dion George.
Mr George said questions would be submitted to Mr Gordhan to determine what work the ministerial committee has done to date, why its work would not continue and whether the year-end target date for the promised report would be met.
Ms Hogan’s spokeswoman, Ayanda Shezi, confirmed yesterday that the Hogan-Gordhan review had been stopped. She referred further questions to the Presidency, whose spokesmen could not be reached.
Prof Steven Friedman, director of the Centre for the Study of Democracy at the University of Johannesburg, said that as long as there was an inquiry of some sort, questions about whether it was conducted by Cabinet ministers or by a presidential committee were irrelevant. “I don’t think this is something we should be worried about…. As long as they are saying they are not going to stop the investigations, I don’t see any problem with that at all.
“We should judge the (presidential) panel on whether it presents its reports on time,” Prof Friedman said.
Mr Zuma announced his panel last month, saying he wanted a team from outside the government to provide an “objective” review. The 12-member panel is led by Mangwashi Phiyega, former Absa corporate affairs executive; Mafika Mkhwanazi, former Transnet CEO; Nombulelo Mkhumane, a Treasury researcher; and Lumkile Mondi , chief economist at the Industrial Development Corporation. Also on the panel are Glen Mashishi, CEO of Nullarbor Management Consultancy; Deon Crafford, a partner in Barnstone Holdings; Swazi Tshabalala, a former Transnet manager and CEO of the Industrial Development Group; Dawn Ma role, a businesswoman; and Pramod Mohanlal, a Nedbank executive.
Source: Business Day
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