The DA has slammed the appointment of Khaya Ngema as Postbank administrator after the entire board of directors quit “to avoid accountability”.
THE DA has slammed the appointment of Khaya Ngema as Postbank administrator after the entire board of directors quit “to avoid accountability”.
On Thursday, the Minister of Communication and Digital Communications, Mondli Gungubele, removed the board of directors of the South African Postbank, following damning allegations from a forensic investigation report by KPMG that Postbank continued to use service providers that had not been lawfully contracted.
On Friday, the DA, through its spokesperson on communications, Natasha Mazzone, said it had learnt with shock of the mass resignations by some of the members of the board who through a scathing letter alleged that the minister was interfering with its work.
“Yesterday, we learned that the Minister of Communications and Digital Technologies, Mondli Gungubele, invoked Section 71 of the Companies Act (No. 71 of 2008), removing the non-executive board of directors of the South African Postbank. This after the board resigned en masse, alleging a ‘hostile and oppressive’ work relationship with the minister,“ Mazzone said.
She said the resignations come at a time when grant recipients were turned away after Postbank was affected by technical glitches resulting in non-payment of grants affecting thousands of pensioners.
In a joint press briefing on Saturday, Gungubele alleged that the Postbank board had pre-emptively resigned, following the outcome of a KPMG audit on an irregular R140 million contract.
Mazzone said the minister had failed to account to the portfolio committee on communications when he needed to and only came to the media to make the announcements in the media.
Mazzone said the DA is opposed to the appointment of Ngema as Postbank administrator.
“This was Gungubele’s first public utterance of a R140 million irregular contract or a KPMG audit. This is a minister that also does not appear before the portfolio committee, which he is accountable to. Members of the committee were unaware, until yesterday, of a R140 million irregular contract.
“Further, after invoking Section 71, Gungubele announced that he has appointed Khaya Ngema as the administrator of the Postbank, until a new board is appointed. Ngema has a long history with Gungubele, from when Gungubele was mayor of Ekurhuleni and Ngema was city manager. If Gungubele cared for the Postbank and was truly interested in good governance, he would not have appointed a fellow cadre to run the Postbank,“ she said.
She said the DA will be submitting a ‘Promotion of Access to Information’ (PAIA) application to the Department of Communications and Digital Technologies on the alleged investigation into the R140 million contract and the KPMG audit detail to be revealed.
“We will also seek records of Gungubele’s engagements with the former Postbank board to investigate their allegations lodged against him,” she said.
