Transnet executives ordered to be at parliamentary meeting

The standing committee on public accounts has summoned the Transnet board and the freight and rail parastatal’s executives to appear before it to account for contraventions of the Public Finance Management Act and abuses of the deviations and expansions process.

The entity’s executives failed to appear before the committee as scheduled in December.

Transnet incurred R549m in irregular expenditure in the 2016-17 financial year. It sought R427m worth of approval in deviations from the Treasury and made contract expansions to the value of R3.64bn in the same financial year.

While Transnet was meant to discuss allegations that officials had violated the act and deviated from procurement guidelines, a host of other embarrassing matters were bound to pop up at the meeting.

On Monday, reports emerged that former Oakbay director Mark Pamensky had tried to pull massive funds in fees for Gupta-linked companies through the sale of R14bn worth of Eskom and Transnet property while he was on the Eskom board.

Suspicions arose on Monday that Transnet executives may have again tried to give the parliamentary committee the slip and join the South African delegation to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

According to sources, Transnet acting CEO Siyabonga Gama’s name was included on a list of delegates to the gathering of world leaders, along with that of Transnet manager Shulami Qalinge and group executive for strategy Khayalethu Ngema.

Standing committee on public accounts chairman Themba Godi said despite the itinerary, he was given the assurance that a full Transnet delegation would be at the meeting on Tuesday.

DA MP Natasha Mazzone said failure to appear before the committee by Transnet’s accounting officer would further frustrate Parliament’s efforts to get to the bottom of procurement violations at Transnet.

“We need to look at the financial statements they have given to Parliament and a lot of procurement deviations that were not allowed,” Mazzone said.

She was also keen to find out more about the reports on the Trillian property proposals implicating Pamensky.

Transnet’s spokeswoman Nompumelelo Kunene told Business Day that a full Transnet delegation would be present at the meeting with the parliamentary committee, including chairwoman Linda Mabaso.