Cape Town – Transport Minister Dipuo Peters's office on Monday dismissed reports that she has moved to suspend four board members of the struggling Airports Company of South Africa (ACSA) as speculation. Peters's spokesman Ishmael Mnisi said the minister had yet to peruse a report about the performance of the board, and had called a meeting on Friday to air the findings before deciding on a course of action.
"This is premature, the minister has not seen the report so it is regrettable that people are saying she has already made a decision and is trying to protect the chairman," Mnisi said.
Newspaper reports early on Monday, said Peters had on Friday issued notices of intent to dismiss four board members – non-executive directors John Lamola, McDonald Kenosi Moroka, Chwayita Mabude and Bajabulile Luthuli.
Business Day reported that this was seen as an attempt to shield CEO Bongani Maseko from being suspended and disciplined for flouting the parastatal’s supply chain rules. It added that some of the four were due to meet with her to discuss a board resolution to suspend Maseko and initiate disciplinary action against him.
There have been questions as to whether action would be taken against the chairman following the suspension of two senior officials at ACSA late last year, given that he has reportedly been implicated in supply chain mismanagement at the company.
Mnisi confirmed that the report the minister planned to interrogate stemmed from a finding by the Auditor-General on a failure at ACSA to stem irregular and wasteful expenditure and said it would deal with the board's findings on whether it's own performance had been inadequate.
"The minister will inevitably consider the Board Evaluation Performance report commissioned by the board itself. The report was sanctioned by the board itself," he stressed.