Mantashe says he’s received no Necsa board resignations

Energy expert and EE business Intelligence MD Chris Yelland dropped a bombshell on Twitter on Wednesday morning, saying the entire board of the Nuclear Energy Corporation of South Africa (Necsa) has tendered its resignation to Mineral Resources and Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe.

Yelland revealed that the five board members, including the chairperson, resigned, due to the “dysfunctional” relationship between Necsa and Mantashe. This was due to “his apparent unwillingness to address the deep financial problems facing Necsa,” Yelland said.

Mantashe, however, said that he haD not yet received any resignations from the board, according to Fin24.

The minister was attending a briefing session at the Bonginsimbi Comprehensive School in Witbank, where he told eNCA that there was already no board as there were only three members left, and that they had been accommodated, but “if they want to leave, I won’t stop them.”

Mantashe said the energy department was currently replenishing the board, and that names were identified on Tuesday to begin putting together a new Necsa board.

“What we are doing in this department is to resuscitate governance and entities in the department, which [have] collapsed… So we are rebuilding it, and we are not rushing… we are not angry with anyone… we are quite steady and move step by step to rebuild governance in the department.

“If you don’t have good governance, you are running a high financial and operational risk… There can be no financial performance if there’s no good governance,” he explained.

In July last year, Moneyweb reported that Necsa has burnt through six CEOs and two chairpeople in seven months.

The once-profitable state-owned enterprise under the previous board is now a financial wreck, asking parliament for a R500-million bailout.

“Any decisions made by this current board are unlawful,” Necsa head of legal Vusi Malebana said in October 2019.

“They were unlawfully appointed, they are unlawfully occupying their seats, and all decisions they make must be subject to review. This is quite apart from the fact that the board is inquorate [lacks enough members to make up a quorum].”

Much of Necsa’s current malaise is blamed on former energy minister Jeff Radebe.

Zolani Masoleng, National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union (Nehawu) branch chair at Necsa, said last year that the current “Jeff Radebe board” and its executives had no credible solutions to the crisis.

“All they are offering is lip service, endless excuses, blame game and abdicating responsibility.

“Things are drifting to a costly disaster under their watch,” Masoleng told Moneyweb.

South Africa is the only country in history to have dismantled its nuclear weapons programme in the run-up to democratic elections, but it continues to be able to produce nuclear power. Necsa exports radioisotopes that are used in medicine (such as cancer treatments) and performs research in the nuclear energy sector.

Since taking over the energy department in Cyril Ramaphosa’s then new cabinet, Radebe made a U-turn on South Africa’s commitment to a nuclear energy deal with Russia, saying it would be too expensive. He also quickly signed long-delayed agreements with independent power producers in the renewables sector.

For more news your way, download The Citizen’s app for iOS and Android.