SCOPA members want Transnet to name people responsible for wasteful & fruitless expenditure

CAPE TOWN - Members of Parliament’s finance watchdog, the standing committee on public accounts (SCOPA), want Transnet to provide them with the names of people responsible for the company’s irregular, fruitless, and wasteful expenditure.

Members of Parliament (MPs) said they want those who’ve landed the company in financial trouble to be named and shamed.

In reporting on Transnet's annual audit last week, the Office of the Auditor General said there was a lack of consequence management by the freight agency for those identified in wrongdoing.

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Meanwhile, group CEO Michelle Phillips has confirmed 12 executives from the Ports Authority are currently facing disciplinary action for a dodgy terminal tender at Ngqura.

In 2022, the Treasury granted Transnet an exemption from reporting irregular, fruitless, and wasteful expenditure in its financial statements until the end of March 2024.

However, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF)’s Veronica Mente said the company can’t be exempt from disclosing the details and allow those responsible to escape attention.

“It can’t be a fruitless and wasteful expenditure finding, yet it doesn’t have a cost, then it doesn’t have a name, then it doesn’t have a consequence. Then that’s not accountability.”

The Democratic Alliance (DA)’s Farhat Essack agreed: “We need names of these individuals that need to be held accountable.”

Phillips said a report on the cases and those responsible has been compiled, but several of the matters are still under investigation.