Molefe accuses Gigaba of stifling Prasa
PASSENGER Rail Agency of SA (Prasa) board chairperson Popo Molefe has accused Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba of withholding a Treasury nominee to his board and stifling corporate governance at the state enterprise.
Molefe, who was reinstated as board chairperson following a court challenge, claimed attempts were being made to isolate him after the appointment of Gigaba and Transport Minister Joe Maswanganyi.
“They called non-executive directors one by one so that I remain alone, because when I am alone there will be no board to take decisions,” Molefe told delegates to the Conference for the Future of SA, organised by the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation.
“Now there are four of us. We are supposed to be six and include the nominee from Treasury and another from the Department of Transport,” Molefe added. “These two ministries have withheld the two nominees so that the board, which requires six people, must not have a quorum.”
Molefe said he was surprised by Gigaba’s statement on good governance last week when the minister announced his 14-point plan to save the country’s ailing economy.
“I listened to him speaking at the JSE, saying he wanted good, efficient state entities and good governance… while he is withholding a nominee who should be on the board of Prasa to do its work. The board cannot finalise its work because there is no quorum.”
Molefe said when he arrived at Prasa he realised former chief executive Lucky Montana “had enormous power”.
“I sat him down and told him you’re a bright, nice, young man, but I think you have made mistakes. You seem to have worked with people who never showed you your errors.”
He said the board had a duty to protect taxpayers’ money and planned to recover cash from service providers who supplied Prasa with locomotives which were too tall for the rail system, procured under Montana’s watch. The locomotives were made by Vossloh Espana, a Spanish company. In a report in 2015, then-public protector Thuli Madonsela found widespread maladministration and impropriety in Prasa in the awarding of contracts worth R2 billion and a failure to follow supply-chain policy.
Montana was fired after Madonsela’s report.