OUTA welcomes SOE Boards shake up

Over the past two years the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (OUTA) has exposed corruption in SOE’s, including laying charges against former SAA chairperson Dudu Myeni with a view to have the courts declare her a delinquent director. This case is due in court in 2019.

“We have raised numerous concerns about dysfunctional SOE’s and are cautiously optimistic about the new moves by Minister Gordhan to restore faith in our state owned companies,” said Wayne Duvenage, OUTA CEO.

While the Department of Public Enterprise (DPE) has positive moves, the department only has authority to appoint and oversea the boards of six of the 700 estimated SOE’s. To root out corruption across all our state owned entities, we need whistleblowers to come forward and provide evidence based input with our investigators.

The announcements by Minister Pravin Gordhan and the developments of the State Capture Inquiry by Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo is affirmation that our work into tackling State Capture and general maladministration in Government has been worthwhile.

Since publishing our 2017 "No Room To Hide" report, we have seen significant steps by government to untangle the web of corruption that has seeped into all government structures and state owned entities.

We are hopeful that the new boards heading up the SOE’s and a speedy State Capture Inquiry will lead to the past leadership being held accountable and through this, an acceleration of the fight to reduce wasteful expenditure of public funds in South Africa.