As South Africa emerges from the state capture era, tech group EOH, which was implicated in grand-scale manipulation of government contracts, says it supports efforts to cleanse the country from a legacy of corruption.
Reacting to the release of the State Capture Commission Report part IV, the JSE-listed group says it is committed to transparency and ethical corporate citizenship. It notes it will work with like-minded groups to “create a positive future for all South Africans”.
When the commission led evidence, Stephen van Coller, CEO of EOH, laid bare governance issues that engulfed the JSE-listed company, including how rogue employees and directors thrived on tender fraud.
The commission heard that then EOH director Jehan Mackay made a series of questionable payments to ANC officials, including former party spokesperson Zizi Kodwa, who is now deputy minister of state security; as well as to former president Jacob Zuma’s advisor Siyabulela Zintwa and Reggie Nkabinde, former treasurer of the ANC Youth League.
Nonetheless, in the report released last week, chief justice Raymond Zondo, who chaired the commission, heaped praise on EOH for its assistance during the inquiry.
“There is no other company that has been of greater assistance to the commission in relation to the investigation of historical wrongdoing within its ranks,” Zondo said about EOH.
The report further compliments the tech group on the approach it had taken to the commission, describing it as a positive extension of the attitude that EOH had adopted in all its dealings with regulatory and law enforcement authorities.
The report also applauds EOH for explaining what it had already done, and what it proposed to do to make reparation for the legacy wrongdoing, as well as to prevent any future wrongdoing.
Reacting to the report, the company, which recently revealed contingency measures to deal with legacy contracts, says: “It is a proud moment for all of us at EOH to receive this accolade from the chief justice. EOH remains committed to transparency, underpinned by ethical corporate citizenship.
“We will continue to strongly advocate the critical importance of standing up for what is right to support the efforts to rid our country from a legacy of state capture and corruption, and to create a positive future for all South Africans.”
Furthermore, EOH reiterated it’s on track to recover monies syphoned off from the group during the state capture era.
It says: “EOH has previously provided updates to the market on various occasions, which confirm that EOH has both reported wrongdoing by certain members of the legacy EOH management team, as well as issued summonses against various defendants, including four former EOH executives, in terms of which it sought to recover losses caused by the perpetrators of wrongdoing.”
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