IDT gives CEO Pakade his marching orders
Mbane to take over CEO post on interim basis
THE Independent Development Trust (IDT) has fired its CEO, Coceko Pakade, after he failed to turn the state entity’s fortunes around in the two and a half years he has been at the helm.
Yvonne Mbane, who has been appointed as the interim chief executive, has been tasked with steering the IDT ship to safety and preventing it from losing further clients.
A staff news circular signed by board chairman Nhlanhla Ngubane said the board was charged with the responsibility of transforming the IDT into “an agile and customer-responsive entity”.
“The IDT has over the last few months been dealing with the loss of clients and a disclaimer audit opinion among other challenges. Hence the board has taken drastic but necessary measures to transform and position our organisation differently,” he said. Speaking of Mbane’s appointment, Ngubane said: “Her primary goal in the next four months is to stabilise the institution and ensure that key milestones such as cost recovery, organisational development and strengthening our relationship with clients are not derailed.”
Under Pakade’s watch the entity – which manages the implementation and delivery of critically needed social infrastructure programmes on behalf of the government – lost some of its big clients, including the department of education.
However, Butterworth-born Pakade said he had not yet been told why he was axed.
He said Ngubane had merely “instructed” him to take special leave for one month.
“When I was asked about it I didn’t decline. It is a mutual separation and nothing has formally been presented to me as yet, nor has anything been explained to me as to why I need to step down.
“In my two and a half years here there were obviously a lot of challenges, and I joined the company when it was at rock bottom, but I have done my part in turning it around,” he said.
Pakade said in his tenure he did programmes reconciliation – which had not been done since 2002 – and tackled the entity’s retention monies and take-on balances, as well as tender deposits, which had not been calculated over 2013-14 or calculated properly until he did it.
“The only challenge we are currently faced with is the invoice cut-off which had not been channelled correctly through our accountants.
“There’s no denying loss of clients, bearing in mind that we service government departments which have experienced many budget cuts, and with the recent recession it has been tough,” he said.
Under Pakade’s watch the education department failed to meet its deadlines on several projects due to lack of service delivery from the agency.
As a result it withdrew 80 projects from the IDT during the 2015-16 financial year.
Education head of infrastructure Tsepo Pefole said the relationship between the department and IDT had taken a nosedive over the past few months.
“They have done a lot of good work for us over the years but recently delivery has not been happening as expected. I do not know what their internal issues are, but we have since taken our projects to other implementing agents,” he said.