Minister Rob Davies gives SABS board the boot

File image: Minister of Trade and Industry Rob Davies. (Photo: Leon Nicholas).

File image: Minister of Trade and Industry Rob Davies. (Photo: Leon Nicholas).

Published Jun 29, 2018

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JOHANNESBURG - Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies has removed the board of the South African Bureau of Standards (SABS) for failing to exercise its fiduciary duties.

On June 8 Davies sent letters to individual board members, calling for presentations to be made to him on why the board should not be removed.

He said three members of the board had tendered their resignations, which he had accepted, while the remaining members had provided him with collective and individual responses.

“The non-performance of the board has become a matter of some concern. I have received numerous complaints regarding lack of service delivery by the SABS,” said Davies.

“These have come from both big and small business, including complaints from black industrial players that government is working hard to expand.

“Local manufacturers are failing to secure supply contracts in local and international markets because of the SABS’s under-performance,” he said.

Davies said the collective response he received from the board on June 15 was unsatisfactory.

“It does not address my concerns, and it indicates that the board has misapprehended its legislative mandate. I have considered the representations made to me during the course of the meeting of June 25, 2018, and found them unpersuasive,” the minister said.

“They have not changed my view in regard to the board’s malperformance. In my view, no cogent countervailing arguments were advanced at the meeting that have swayed me from my initial concerns.”

He added: “I have lost confidence in the board’s ability to manage the entity effectively I have dissolved the board of SABS with immediate effect. In its stead, I have decided to place it under the control of administrators appointed in terms of Section 15 of the Public Service Act of 1994, read with Section 49 of the PFMA.”

-BUSINESS REPORT 

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