The dismissal of the CEO of the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS), Andile Nongogo has brought into stark focus the impact of the Government and the ruling party to impose consequence management on deployed executives to State owned Entities (SOEs) and agencies.
By all accounts Nongogo is something of a ‘serial offender’, having left his previous post as CEO of the Services Seta under a cloud. The allegations at his previous job was that he was involved in manipulation/improper involvement in procurement that involved the award of questionable tenders to companies he was closely associated with at inflated prices. To prove the adage that ‘a leopard does not change its spots’, he was first suspended at NSFAS, and eventually fired for actions remarkably similar to those at his previous job. The tragedy is that his actions at NSFAS caused severe inconvenience and hardship to thousands of students at institutions of higher learning across the country.
To add insult to injury, in many of these cases, the culprit exits one post under questionable circumstances with a handsome ‘golden handshake’ straight into another high paying post. Perhaps the most egregious example of this is the case of one Andile Qaba, who after being suspended, and subsequently removed by the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality as executive director of Economic Development, Tourism and Agriculture over allegations of gross financial misconduct, lands a position just a few short months later as CEO of the Nelson Mandela Bay Development Agency. His ‘removal’ from his post was engineered by a large financial payout, amidst much acrimony between the parties. Yet the Council saw nothing wrong in the appointment. Scratch the surface of this unsavoury incident and one will most likely find that Qaba is the beneficiary of some heavy ‘political’ protection that makes him impervious to any consequences as well as the ‘teflon coated’ ability to flit from one high paying (government) appointment to another.
To their credit, National Treasury were so alarmed by this development that they withheld almost R600m in grant funding to the city, with Deputy Treasury DG Malijeng Ngqaleni saying: ‘These processes about Mr Anele Qaba raise questions about the legality of the process on his appointment as the CEO of the Agency’. Perhaps, we need to see more of this, with those who control the flow of funds to ‘misbehaving’ municipalities and entities doing what the politicians are unwilling to do.
This state of affairs at local government is not surprising, as the ruling party sets the tone at national and provincial government by repeatedly appointing Ministers and MECS of dubious character, and those implicated in questionable financial behaviour.
Vijay Naidoo is the CEO of the Port Shepstone Business Forum. He writes in his personal capacity. The views expressed are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of this publication.
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