Cape Town - The Democratic Alliance on Sunday called for the R17.3 million in bonuses paid by PetroSA to its top executives to be paid back immediately.It also called for the legal opinion which "informed this disastrous payment" to be made public and tabled before Parliament.
"This is after it was revealed today [Sunday] that the state-owned entity paid eleven executives a total of R17.3 million in bonuses even though these bonuses were not approved by PetroSA’s board," DA spokesman Gordon Mackay said.
The bonuses were paid out based on a legal opinion which stated that “affordability would not qualify as a justifiable reason to not pay the bonuses”, he said.
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"What is disturbing is that this opinion was obtained by head of legal services Mokgaetsi Sebothoma, who received a massive R2.4 million payout."
The payment of bonuses to executives came at a time when the state oil company recorded a loss of R14.5 billion due to a number of disastrous projects and failure to meet key targets.
In light of austerity measures and the fact that PetroSA staff members had not received bonuses for two years, it was manifestly unfair for executives, many of whom had overseen failed projects and had not met targets, to received millions in bonuses, the official opposition argued.
"We cannot afford a culture in state-owned entities where poor decisions and lack of accountability by top executives are rewarded with the payment of astronomical bonuses," Mackay said.