The Board of Directors of Roads Agency Limpopo SOC Limited (Ral) has accepted the resignation of its Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Maselaganye Matji who offered personal reasons for the step.
“The Board is appreciative of the leadership that Mr Matji has provided in stabilising the Agency, leaving the organisation in a much better state than he found it. Mr Matji is serving notice until the 31 March 2019,” Board Chairperson Matome Ralebipi said in a media release last Thursday.
“Matji is the first CEO appointed by the Board of Ral on a five-year contract, from 1 March 2015 to 29 February 2020, after the Agency was effectively returned from a Section 100 administration in early 2014 after a tumultuous period of lack of leadership, mismanagement and systematic collapse of corporate governance,” the statement says and adds that Ral’s erstwhile host department, the Limpopo Department of Roads and Transport, was one of the five provincial government departments placed under administration by national government from 2011 to 2014.
SOME KEY ACHIEVEMENTS OF RAL DURING MATJI’S FOUR-YEAR TENURE
The Ral Board highlights the following salient points:
– Stabilising the Agency by putting in place policies, processes, internal controls and procedures to ensure effective operation and management of the Agency.
– Improving the audit opinion of the Agency by the office of the Auditor-General of South Africa (Agsa) from adverse in 2012/13 to an unqualified audit opinion for the recently audited 2017/18 financial year.
– Raising close to half a billion rand from the private sector, through the Agency’s breakthrough Strategic Partnership Approach, a key tenet of 2015-2020 and now a successful turnaround strategy. These funds now at R482 million, have helped augment the Agency’s constraint budget and put a dent on backlog in the province.
– Completing over 70 road infrastructure projects across Limpopo Province.
– Used the same road infrastructure delivery as a vehicle for driving village economy by investing in local Small Medium and Micro Enterprises (SMMEs) and creating jobs. Just over R458 million has been spent on local SMME empowerment and an impressive R325 million in local labour spending.
According to the statement, the Board will begin the search for a new CEO. The Board has also announced that it has appointed Gabriel Maluleke, who was seconded from the Board, with effect from 1 April 2019 as the interim CEO until the recruitment process is successfully concluded. Maluleke is a qualified Chartered Accountant, CA (SA) with 25 years of experience. He is also a qualified business rescue practitioner.
“The Board wishes Mr Matji all the best in his future endeavours,” the statement concludes.
Ral is a state-owned company listed in schedule 3C of the Public Finance Management Act that is under 100% control and ownership of the Limpopo Provincial Government. The MEC responsible for Limpopo Department of Public Works, Roads and Infrastructure is its shareholder on behalf of the provincial government. The Agency was established in 1999, through the promulgation of its founding statute, the Limpopo Province Roads Agency Propriety Limited and Provincial Act 7 of 1998 as amended. Ral is registered in terms of the Companies Act 71 of 2008, as a state-owned company. Its functions are to plan, design, construct, maintain, control and manage all Limpopo provincial roads.
Story: BARRY VILJOEN
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