The future of yet another South African parastatal’s chief executive officer hangs in the balance. Armscor has suspended its CEO Hamilton Thomo, pending the outcome of a disciplinary investigation. The Armscor board suspended him with full pay and benefits after discussions failed to resolve the matter amicably.

Last week Thomo maintained that he would not step down as he had done nothing wrong. He attended an Armscor briefing to the Portfolio Committee in spite of the fact that the board had asked him to resign. The board told the Portfolio committee that Thomo was dragging the organisation down.

But it seemed the last straw was his handling of the Airbus A400 affair, which Thomo admitted before Parliament that its cost rocketed from R17 billion to about R47 billion. Cabinet scrapped the deal two weeks ago. Board chairperson Popo Molefe says they  met yesterday to discuss serious allegations against the CEO. Armscor's general manager Sipho Makwanazi will act as the CEO.

Armscor, the Armaments Corporation of South Africa is a government-supported weapon-producing conglomerate that was officially established in 1968 primarily as response to the international sanctions by the United Nations against South Africa.