Cape Town - The chairwoman of Transnet, Linda Mabaso, has resigned with immediate effect, Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan said on Thursday.
Mabaso's resignation comes on the eve of a shareholder meeting called by Gordhan for Friday.
"I accepted her resignation, which took effect immediately," Gordhan said in a statement.
Two non-executive directors, Vusi Nkonyane and Yasmin Forbes, also resigned, the ministry said. They had respectively been in their positions since 2014 and 2011.
The three resignations follow that of Garry Pita as Transnet chief financial officer and executive director on April 19.
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Pita in 2016 signed off on invoices authorising Transnet to pay R74 million to Trillian Capital Partners, which was part of the Gupta family's business network. The payment was for work done between February 2016 and June 2016 but the invoices provided little detail of the nature of the work.
Gordhan vowed to get to the bottom of serious allegations of corruption that have plagued Transnet, a day after he told members of Parliament (MPs) that the ministry intended to recover public money that was lost to so-called state capture, in which politically connected individuals, secured lucrative deals with state-owned companies.
"Under the authority of the current Board, Transnet, which has the duty to provide and maintain key transport and logistics infrastructure in order to promote the competitiveness of the South African economy, became embroiled in serious allegations of flagrant corruption and state capture. These allegations will be thoroughly investigated," he said.
"The shareholder’s meeting tomorrow will proceed as planned. New appointments to the Transnet board will be announced soon."
Gordhan also told MPs that appointing new boards and management teams to parastatals were part of the ministry's plans to clean house at parastatals and recuperate billions of rands lost to corruption.