SA forests under the axe

The South African Forestry Companies Ltd (Safcol) executive committee was summoned to a Saturday meeting in Sandton at the beginning of 2014, at which members were introduced to the new consultants, Regiments Capital.

Sources said the main consultant turned out to be Eric Wood. He would move to the Gupta-linked Trillian Capital shortly afterwards.

Sources confirmed to Lowvelder that there was constant and unreasonable pressure on Safcol exco members since 2011, in similar vein as at parastatals such as Eskom, SAA, Transnet and the SABC.

A well-placed source told Lowvelder that when Malusi Gigaba was appointed minister of public enterprises in 2010, the grooming for capture of the Lowveld state-owned plantations started taking form.

The campaign for the weakening of Safcol board’s executive formed part of the strategy to create the situation whereby the masters of state capture could move in. “Komatiland Forests (KLF) was the only real asset still left in the Safcol camp,” a source explained.

“Most the other assets were by then already sold off.”

The Komatiland plantations were all Forestry Stewardship Council-certified and the logs sought-after internationally.

The biological asset valuation of KLF is conservatively estimated at more than R6 billion.

It had no debts and no Eskom fees outstanding. KLF is a state asset which is managed in a cluster, together with Denel.

One casualty was CEO Kobus Breed, who buckled under the pressure from the board and resigned in 2011.

He told Lowvelder that when Alec Erwin resigned as minister of public enterprises, after Jacob Zuma ousted Thabo Mbeki, the new minister and department’s way of working filtered down to the new board of directors appointed at Safcol.

“The new board clearly had its own agenda and it was difficult to always agree with them,” said Breed.

The CFO, Maureen Manyama-Matome, was appointed as acting CEO in Breed’s place, but she did not last long.

In August 2012, Nomkhita Mona was appointed CEO by the board. She was put under a lot of pressure from members of the board from the day she took office.

Mona could not be reached for comment. Safcol’s newly appointed COO, Francois de Villiers, took office in May 2013.

According to sources, he was also pressured and attempts made to destroy his reputation.

Mona and De Villiers had to go through a year-end withouta financial officer and from the outset, the board handed out firm instructions that certain firms should be used.

When Lynne Brown replaced Gigaba as minister in 2013, Safcol passed its 2014 audit with flying colours and there was cash in the bank.

Despite this, Brown allegedly criticised executive members in the AGM and chastised them out over their alleged poor performance, even though the parastatal made money.

After the AGM, Brown told the SABC Safcol’s management was poor.

“Come August 2014, the pressure was relentless,” Lowvelder was told by a source. “Every board meeting turned out to be a nightmare. At times, some female members of the exco left the meetings in tears. “We sweated it out through 2015 and hoped for a new board to take charge.

Yet again, we boasted a clean audit in 2015, with even more money in the bank.

By July 2015, we started taking stock of all the possible new board members that could come on board … that was until we heard the rumours that ‘another grouping in Saxonwold’ chose the board members.”

– news@citizen.co.za

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