Transnet is reviewing and investigating all suspicious contracts which it entered into with dubious companies such as the Gupta’s linked Trillian and McKenzie.
In many instances, these companies earned billions of rands from several state enterprises for jobs they didn’t do.
Briefing parliament on their performance targets for the current financial year, Transnet’s CEO Siyabonga Gama says all dubious contracts entered into will be investigated.
Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordan informed legislators about the damage caused by incidents of state capture.
Gordan says although they do not have the actual amount lost through corruption and fruitless and wasteful expenditure in many of the SOEs, the amount could run into billions of rands.
Gordhan has also refuted claims by the board of Transnet that it acted on the recommendations of the Werksman’s report.
Transnet’s top executives and board members appeared today before the oversight committee on Public Enterprises on the corporate plan of the entity.
The board insisted that it had addressed the issue of fraud and corruption raised in the Werksman report.
However, the minister told the committee that instead, the board took extra ordinary efforts to hide what had happened and he is not aware of any actions taken.
“I’m afraid I can’t verify what has just been said and that is an exemplification of some of the difficulties that we have faced as I understand it firstly the Werksman report mentions three individuals that should have been summarily suspended and investigated, the board deliberately didn’t do that.”
Gordhan also told the committee the financial costs of State Capture could well run into billions of rands. He mentioned huge sums of money spent on locomotives at Transnet, questionable tenders at Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa and coal contracts between Gupta linked company Tegeta and Eskom.
Minister Gordhan says State Capture has affected the reputation of the country.
“These are possible areas of damage soon hopefully we can put some numbers to it but secondly it’s been a huge cost to the country in terms of our reputation as a good site for investment and in recent years we were unstable but now things are changing.”
Click below for more on the story:
