Government is pursuing delinquency proceedings against 35 former directors implicated in state capture. Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan says SOEs are implementing the Zondo Commission recommendations. He was briefing Parliament’s Select Committee on Public Enterprises and Communication.
Eskom, Transnet, SAA and Denel are some of the state-owned entities that lost billions of rands through state capture. The department says it is pursuing delinquency proceedings against implicated individuals. It’s also pursuing criminal and civil cases against others. But the Minister is not satisfied with the pace at which law enforcement agencies are moving.
“The risk of consequences is certainly not there to the full extent and so mischief if you like is encouraged because at the moment, enforcement agencies are not making in my view the kind of impact and progress that they need to be making,” says Gordhan.
Some of the implicated individuals have been referred to their professional bodies to be disciplined. In addition, the Department wants to blacklist others from being employed by government. And all board tender committees have been done away with to prevent state capture in future.
“We cannot continue to make the mistake of appointing people to boards merely because they have a particular profile publicly or somebody’s friend” Gordhan said.
The committee welcomed the recovery of some of the money embezzled during state capture.
“There are strides that are taken for people who are involved in corruption and also I could see that they do recoup some monies out of it and has frozen some of the banks for people who are part of the corruption,” says Lindiwe Bebee, ANC MP.
Gordan says his department is monitoring the progress of SOE action plans on the recommendations of the Zondo Commission.
