Minister sacked board out of the blue, court told

Judgment is only expected next week in an urgent court application by the ousted Prasa board for their reinstatement.

Judge Peter Mabuse yesterday said in the High Court in Pretoria he was reserving judgment in the application by the ousted Prasa board chairperson Popo Molefe and members of the board.

The board was dissolved by Transport Minister Dipuo Peters last month.

The ousted board has asked the court to set aside the minister’s decision as irrational and unlawful and wants the court to reinstate them and stop Peters from replacing them with an interim board, already named.

Counsel for the applicants David Unterhalter SC argued that Peters had never given an inkling that she felt their decision to fire acting Prasa group CEO Collins Letsoalo for organising a 350% pay raise for himself without the board’s approval, was unlawful.

She also gave no inkling that she had accepted Letsoalo’s explanation about his astronomical raise and was considering the drastic step of disbanding the whole board. Unterhalter argued that Prasa had been subjected to mismanagement for years when the board took over, and that they had already made huge strides and were in the middle of massive court cases aimed at recovering monies. The counsel for the minister, Etienne Labuschagne, argued that the board had been part of the problem and that Prasa had been driven to the brink of collapse with irregular expenditure increasing steadily under their watch. He said the board had for a long period acted in a manner which showed that they had posed a threat to Prasa and the public good, and were themselves party to irregular expenditure.

He said although Molefe had repaid the bulk of the R1 million he owed Prasa, he still owed another R300 000, while another board member owed R480 000, which he refused to repay.

“This is an institution in crisis under the board, which now wants to be reappointed,” Labushagne said.

“...Their [the former Prasa board’s] term of office expires in July and they cannot sit thereafter.

“There is already an interim board in place,” he said.