Getting Rid Of The Rot In Transnet

The tentacles of state capture spread far and wide within the state-owned transport and logistics company, Transnet. But new management is resolute about cleaning house.

- David McKay

Until now the extent of state capture at the government-owned transport and logistics company, Transnet, has largely gone under the radar. It’s a fact not lost on its acting CEO, Tau Morwe, a veteran of the organisation, having worked across its various businesses for more than 17 years.

“When we met with lenders recently, they wanted to know from us how bad things were at Eskom,” he said in a background media briefing last month. The suggestion is that no matter what may be revealed during Transnet chairman Popo Molefe’s appearance before the Zondo Commission of Inquiry, it can’t be worse than the litany of corruption uncovered at the power utility.

Yet state capture is as much a phenomenon at Transnet as at Eskom. Former Transnet executives and managers of various stripes are facing a multitude of allegations in which they accepted hundreds of millions of rands in kickbacks, according to a report by City Press. Both Morwe and Molefe, appointed atop Transnet by President Cyril Ramaphosa in an effort to set the organisation to rights, are expected to give evidence at the Zondo commission.

High on the agenda may be the Transnet dossier called ‘Tainted Deals and Kickbacks’. According to City Press, it shows that over R8bn in bribes were paid in ten lucrative contracts between 2012 and 2017. There were also allegations that R92.6bn was laundered through Gupta owned Homix from Transnet’s telecommunications service deal with Neotel. The rot extended its influence to junior Transnet staffers who suddenly bore income some R350 000 higher than a year before. They bought luxury cars and houses. For cash.