FORMER Eskom boss Tshediso Matona last week finally slammed the door on the face of the bogeyman that had haunted him since he first walked the corridors of the utility’s Megawatt Park headquarters in September last year.
A career civil servant by profession, Matona stood no chance against entrenched spells at Eskom that had chased away many a chief executive before him.
His forerunner Brian Dames left in 2014 after pocketing R22.78 million in total pay, including a R5m package at the end of his contract, as well as R1.9m in backpay. He also received a R1.92m payout in long-term incentives.
Dames’ predecessor Jacob Maroga took home a cool R4.7m for seven months’ work after he presided over the country’s first load shedding period in 2008. Maroga’s salary earnings from the end of March to October 2009 came to R3.5m. But his remuneration also included a short-term bonus of R1.266m paid in December 2009.
Of all the government-owned enterprises, Eskom probably boasts the juiciest and best trappings for a quick buck and self-enrichment. There is a lot at stake here, from the supply of coal and diesel to just dishing out food in the canteens and putting out toilet rolls in between making sure the lights stay on.
Little surprise therefore that in a murky world such a Eskom, only the fittest survive, and poor Matona – an affable oke par excellence – bit the dust only six months into his tenure as chief executive. Well, like those before him, his is a movie whose end only himself could have guessed.
The jury is still out whether tough as nails Brian Molefe will see his almost confirmed ascendancy to the throne through. With impeccable business acumen and arrogance to accompany it, Molefe may be just what Eskom needs as it battles to keep the lights on.
So while Matona’s exit package remains a mystery – at least until the utility releases its financial year-end results next year – he should be smiling all the way to the bank for now.
No small consolation, notwithstanding, there is nothing wrong with exit packages as they are a common feature in the corporate sphere, the world over. What is more worrisome, however, is the carefree nature in which the government has been dishing them out to countless civil servants in the past few years.
Seasoned machinery
Admittedly, most joined the civil service with no experience in public administration and battled their way to become more than just government employees. They became a key ingredient of the new government’s policy reform process and performed like seasoned machinery that allowed the state to implement post-apartheid policies.
Trevor Manuel went into Treasury without much idea of the happenings in the fiscus world yet by the time he left government, he was celebrated as one of the finest finance ministers this part of the world had ever seen.
Pravin Gordhan took the South African Revenue Service (Sars) from nowhere and carved it into an efficient revenue collector that allowed the state to plan its policies knowing that they were backed up by a solid tax base. But there are others who came in to warm seats for a few weeks, assured that even if they did not perform as expected, a couple of millions would be on hand to cushion their disgrace should somebody find them out.
Take former SABC chair Ellen Shabalala for example. She forgot what qualifications she actually had, and told Parliament that a ghost stole all their traces from her alma mater archive. When she eventually left last year, she was rumoured to have pocketed a good few of the coveted handshakes. EFF chairman Dali Mpofu got R11m when he resigned as SABC chief executive.
Eskom, the SABC and SAA seem to have mastered this freestyle of golden handshakes beyond excellence.
Coleman Andrews hoodwinked the national airliner into thinking that he was a genuine turnaround strategist. After selling a few jets Coleman received a record breaking R232m handshake, even though the airliner posted a net loss of more than R700m when he left in 2001. Another former SAA chief executive Andre Viljoen received R3.6m on top of a salary of R2.2m and a performance bonus of almost R1m, despite the fact that during the last two years of his reign, the company made losses amounting to R15 billion.
Khaya Ngqula also received an R8m settlement when he resigned in 2009.
Recently, SAA parted ways with its chief executive Monwabisi Kalawe after reaching an out-of-court settlement to stop a disciplinary hearing against him. Kalawe was also given a beautiful handshake that included six months’ salary and pay for leave owed to him.
And just this month, former Sars deputy commissioner Ivan Pillay and strategic planning risk group executive Peter Richer resigned with handsome packages after the revenue collector instituted an inquiry into an alleged operation of a rogue spy unit within Sars and were to face a disciplinary hearing and possibly criminal charges.
With their resignation, all charges have been dropped. No wonder South Africa is now called a handshake republic.
Perhaps we need to take a step back to understand where it all started. When the ANC government came into power in 1994, it employed a concept called cadre deployment to make sure that it put the best among its own to drive its reformist and redistributive agenda.
It made absolute sense because only a naïve administration would even think of entrusting its programmes to its former enemy.
But, as they say in the military, the enemy has now been neutralised and white people have come to general acceptance that there is life under a black government.
So while the cadre deployment policy had its successes, it also brought with it a wave of unforeseen difficulties as the politically connected joined with the monied elite to think that the country owes them something.
The only person who must be cursing himself right now is former police spokesman Vincent Mdunge, who has to spend five years in jail for forging his matric certificate while SABC’s Hlaudi Motsweneng, without a matric, hikes his own salary from R334 167 in 2010 to R2.8m in 2014, making him more bankable than President Jacob Zuma.
Dollars on the exit sign
I harbour very little doubt in my mind that when he is eventually forced out of his position, Motsweneng would also get an enormous – “don’t let the door hit you on your way out” – package.
But is it really too late to take stock, and too embarrassing for the government to relook some of its programmes like cadre deployment, given that the far right and the far left have become as extinct as the seven headed snake that my grandmother, okaKhozakhulu, used to tell of about many moons ago.
If suggestions from Luthuli House on boosting local government efficiency are anything to go by, chances are that there is a quiet revolution taking place behind our backs. It began when the now-defunct Scorpions suffered the most bruising assault on its image, it looked to one of its most competent officers to rebuild the institution, appointing the shy but effective Anwar Dramat to drive a new outfit called the Hawks.
And in his laid-back manner, Dramat quietly worked his way to restore the credibility of the elite crime busting unit and made some important arrests to clean up our country of the dodgy types.
Sadly, when he started asking too many and uncomfortable questions the door was slapped on his face, along with an alleged award of a R13m exit package.
I am sure that there are many black and white people who can take the governance of our country to a higher level.
And beyond the Manuels of our time, there are many other patriotic South Africans like businesswomen Anna Mokgokong and Dolly Makgatle, former FirstRand chief executive Sizwe Nxasana and Bobby Godsell, who can be called upon to lend their expertise in some of the troubled parastatals.
While the corporate sector places emphasis on the chief executives’ accountability to shareholders, leaders of state-owned institutions should also pledge a degree of answerability to the public.
For if this is not done, many peace-loving South Africans will see this endless merry-go-round of golden handshakes as a reason why they too should be entitled to free electricity, free education, free water and free housing.
Government should lead by example, so that when it asks Soweto residents to pay Eskom the R4bn debt they owe, they cannot accuse it of asking the poor to pay while making the inefficient civil servants richer by the day.
Sechaba ka’Nkosi is the Business Report assistant news editor and senior reporter.