Carolus blows a hole in ANC excuses

Although the scale of financial profligacy and corruption in South Africa is mind boggling, it is not surprising. There was always going to be a run on the gravy when a new set of piggies bellied-up for a turn at the trough.

One wonders how long the snuffle party can last, though. Just a cursory flick through the past week’s headlines gives us: R1.5 billion in wasteful government expenditure on five-star hotels, luxury cars, parties, soccer tickets, and self-congratulatory advertising; R300 million in tender rigging at Water Affairs; R45 million in pay to suspended civil servants whose disciplinary hearings dragged out unnecessarily; “hundreds of millions” looted by a syndicate that infiltrated the revenue service and the company registration authority; R30.8 million squandered by SAA’s former chief executive, Khaya Ngqula; and the SA Social Security Agency (Sassa) technically bankrupt following R1.2 billion of “grossly negligent … wasteful and fruitless expenditure” in the words of the parliamentary oversight committee.

More than a year ago the government appointed a task team under Public Service Minister Richard Baloyi, to examine wasteful expenditure “in the light of the economic meltdown”. Well, the meltdown has come and gone but Baloyi has yet to produce his report.

Not that it really matters. The problem is not going to be solved by yet another compilation of ministerial platitudes. Wastefulness, along with corruption, flourishes because it is the tolerated, inevitable, corollary to an ethos of self-enrichment and entitlement.

There is a glimmer of light, though. Headed by the feisty Cheryl Carolus, the new SAA board has decided to sue the sacked Ngqula for the R30.8 million identified as misspent in forensic audit, on the grounds that he exceeded his managerial authority. The matter has also been handed to the National Prosecuting Authority’s Specialised Commercial Crimes Unit to investigate criminal charges.

For a board to hold its chief executive accountable in this fashion is unheard of in SA, where soft-soaping and back-scratching are ubiquitous. In the period BC (Before Carolus) the incompetent or dishonest chief executive would be bribed to ride off quietly into the sunset with a fat severance packet in his pocket and a smile on his face.

Carolus’ simple explanation for her departure from the norm is that “the law requires us to take every reasonable attempt to recover the money”. Indeed it does, and similarly, board members have a fiduciary duty to exercise diligent oversight over management.

So it is difficult to understand why the members of the former SAA board have been excluded from the audit and the investigations. As is the case on many if not most boards — both in the commercial and public sectors — the SAA directors were supine sycophants, applauding admiringly from the sidelines the egotistical jigs of the chief executive.

Whether or not Carolus succeeds in her pursuit of Ngqula is almost irrelevant. What she has done is signal a sea-change in the way that the SAA board will relate to its chief executive, an example that shareholders and taxpayers will demand that other entities emulate.

Parliamentarians have been effusive in their praise of Carolus. So no doubt we can expect them to seize the nettle she has proffered by acting with similar determination in cleaning up other failed state entities, such as the notoriously useless and corrupt Sassa.

Social Services Minister Edna Molewa recently admitted that 116 officials have been implicated in irregular expenditure and misappropriation over the past couple of years.

Their punishment? They were given written warnings not to be naughty again. No wonder there is a R1.2 billion hole in the Sassa budget and an equally big gap in the African National Congress’ credibility.