Gordhan lashes PPC board again
Former chief accuses it of depicting his concerns as ‘petty’
FORMER PPC chief executive Ketso Gordhan has again lashed out at the board of the listed cement and lime producer, accusing it of depicting the concerns he raised as “petty and egotistical”.
“The concerns I raised with the board went to the heart of the culture, performance and strategy we as a management team were driving at PPC.
“My ambition is not to join the PPC boardroom playpen in trivialising the purpose of the shareholders meeting, but to urge shareholders to focus on corporate leadership and value creation for all stakeholders,” he said.
Gordhan resigned at the end of September, but thereafter attempted to get PPC’s board to allow him to retract his resignation and reinstate him. This was refused, resulting in him embarking on a campaign to get himself reinstated.
He yesterday further questioned the PPC board’s decision to publish a series of paid advertisements over the past few days when there was an opportunity to address shareholders directly at its annual results announcement today.
Instead of the board communicating to shareholders why it was the best steward of their interests, it was spending money on misrepresenting and trivialising his reasons for resigning from PPC, he said.
“I would have thought a board that is aware of its duty would see the shareholders’ meeting on December 8 as an opportunity to focus on convincing shareholders that, notwithstanding creating a leadership vacuum that wiped R3 billion off the company’s market capitalisation, this is the best possible board to deliver on PPC’s Africa strategy, which is a necessity for creating shareholder value,” he said.
In the advertisements, PPC said that between September 4 and 19 Gordhan had sought to terminate the services of chief financial officer Tryphosa Ramano for five reasons.
These were that she had a
He further questioned the PPC board’s decision to publish a series of paid adverts…
bigger office than him; she had requested reserved parking, which was declined; she refused to participate in a voluntary salary sacrifice scheme, which Gordhan had initiated to bridge the gap between the highest and lowest paid worker; she was interrogating a loan agreement that Gordhan had verbally agreed to with a potential funder; and she had ill treated an employee whom Gordhan had employed.
PPC said its board believed the reasons advanced by Gordhan were not substantive and did not warrant the termination of Ramano’s employment.
The company added that Gordhan had been with the company for 20 months but in that period had resigned twice. “This type of behaviour was concerning to the board and… was expected to continue.”
PPC said the board had a total of 36 years’ experience, the individual board members had multi-disciplinary skills that were complementary and the board had never faced criticism until it had accepted Gordhan’s resignation.
Without naming Romano, Gordhan reiterated yesterday that a senior finance executive had undermined a lucrative funding deal negotiated with the approval of the board as part of PPC’s African expansion plans.
The executive had created a culture of fear and recrimination among the finance team, creating a work environment that was so dysfunctional it became a hindrance to the teams that were putting together the Africa expansion projects.
Gordhan said he had pushed for an open plan office structure to improve executive accessibility and to bring down head office costs, but the executive in question had refused to give up her office.