Sentech's chief operations officer Beverly Ngwenya has taken up the acting CEO role at the embattled state company.
Her appointment follows the sudden resignation of Sebiletso Mokone-Matabane, who left amid a highly controversial report damning the state-owned business's leadership struggles. Her tenure at the company was expected to last another six months.
Mokone-Matabane is the latest top person to leave the state-owned enterprise, as Yvonne Muthien, Deenadayalen Konar and Tau Mashigo all resigned from the board since the start of the year.
However, communications minister Siphiwe Nyanda yesterday announced a new set of board members to replace them. Quraysh Patel has been appointed the company's new chairman, taking over from Colin Hickling.
Mesuli Dhlamini, Zanele Hlatshwayo and Thabo Leeuw will join Patel in the company's boardroom.
Nyanda is hoping the company's new leadership will help steer it in a new directions: “I'm confident that your tenure on the board of Sentech will contribute towards the strengthening and growth of the organisation and take it to greater heights.”
Difficult times
A recent report submitted to the Department of Communications found the leadership of the company “weak” and the company itself in a “financially thorny position”, and recommended that it needed to be turned around urgently. National Treasury officials have referred to Sentech as government's “trouble child”.
Nyanda released the finding of a task team's probe into Sentech in February and said no “explicit recommendations” on the firing of board members had been made in the report.
It was, however, expected that management changes would be made, and the department is expected to appoint a new board next month. The report recommended that leadership and governance in the company needed to be strengthened.
It is still unclear whether Mokone-Matabane's resignation has anything to do with the task team's findings.
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