http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/C ... ?id=125521
From Business Day, 2 November 2010Acting CEO Wells to quit Transnet in shock move.
TRANSNET was plunged deeper into a leadership crisis yesterday after it announced that acting CEO Chris Wells will step down in March.
by JULIUS BAUMANN
Published: 2010/11/02 06:32:28 AM
TRANSNET was plunged deeper into a leadership crisis yesterday after it announced that acting CEO Chris Wells will step down in March, adding to a growing list of senior posts at the entity now filled by acting appointees. The job of replacing him hands incoming Public Enterprises Minister Malusi Gigaba a huge task as he settles into the office vacated by Barbara Hogan , after President Jacob Zuma ’s Cabinet reshuffle on Sunday.
Among the logistics group’s senior posts now filled by acting appointees are that of chairman, group CEO, and CEO of Transnet Freight Rail, the group’s largest operating division. It appears there has been little progress in filling the posts. And the process is likely to be further held up by the appointment of Mr Gigaba to replace Ms Hogan.
Mr Wells, Transnet’s former chief financial officer, has brought stability to the parastatal in the past 18 months, assembling a strong team and moving quickly to implement a turnaround strategy at Transnet, despite his working in an acting capacity.
The group said last week that sharply higher volumes on Transnet’s coal and iron-ore lines, and improved productivity at the ports, propelled the group’s net profit 35% higher to R1,7bn in the six months to September.
Mr Wells’s departure will leave a leadership vacuum, with few internal candidates able to step into his shoes.
The timing of Transnet’s announcement, the day after the removal from office of Ms Hogan, has given the impression that the two departures could be linked.
Mr Wells got on well with Ms Hogan, who strongly defended the principles of corporate governance during the succession battle after the departure of CEO Maria Ramos. Ms Hogan also acted as a bulwark against political intervention in the enterprise.
The announcement of his departure could be interpreted as Mr Wells taking a gloomy view of the likelihood that this intervention would persist under Mr Gigaba. However, it is understood Mr Wells made his decision about two weeks ago and held back the announcement until after last week’s release of Transnet’s results.
Transnet’s media statement yesterday emphasised that the decision was “finalised and shared with relevant stakeholders a week agoâ€.
Mr Wells has also always indicated that he would not like to stay on in a permanent position and said yesterday he is prepared to stand down sooner if a new CEO is named before March.
No doubt there was some frustration at the time taken to fill the post. Transnet was expected to announce a new CEO soon after Siyabonga Gama, the suspended CEO of Transnet Freight Rail, was dismissed in June. Yet four months on, no decision has been made. Mr Gama, once seen as the leading candidate for the top post at Transnet, held up the appointment of a permanent CEO after a protracted battle with the group. Mr Gama had claimed that the disciplinary action that led to his dismissal was to stop him being promoted to group CEO, a post vacant since Ms Ramos left in March last year.
Acting chairman Prof Geoff Everingham was generous in his praise of Mr Wells yesterday: “Despite being in an acting position for a considerable period of time, Mr Wells has not hesitated to act decisively — both with regard to determining strategy and in providing hands-on management.â€
http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/C ... ?id=125539
A thick skin where it counts.
THE announcement yesterday that acting Transnet CE Chris Wells is to stand down next year will provide President Jacob Zuma and his new Public Enterprises Minister, Malusi Gigaba, with a good test of principle.
Published: 2010/11/02 07:25:42 AM
THE announcement yesterday that acting Transnet CE Chris Wells is to stand down next year will provide President Jacob Zuma and his new Public Enterprises Minister, Malusi Gigaba , with a good test of principle — to allow the Transnet board to choose a permanent successor or to connive to produce a political appointment.
Of course, it may, in the end, prove difficult to say which applied. But anything approximating the appointment of former Freight Rail CE Siyabonga Gama would send all the wrong signals. Mr Gama was at the centre of a row at Transnet, which no doubt played a role in the departure from the Cabinet yesterday of Barbara Hogan and, arguably, Siphiwe Nyanda. For that matter, it probably hastened Mr Wells’s departure too.
But Mr Gigaba comes to the job with a pretty good political record. Apart from an incident in which he used state funds to buy his wife a bouquet of flowers (to no avail, as it sadly turns out) he comes to this very critical job with his reputation intact. He has campaigned forcefully for tough antipornography laws to protect children while deputy home affairs minister, and has developed a thick political skin.
He will need it at public enterprises, which handles a lot of companies around each of which seems constantly to swirl the most incendiary politics. Fortunately, the top jobs at South African Airways and Eskom have been done, with just Transnet to go and Denel possibly looming.
It is hard to say whether Mr Zuma’s own inquiry into state- owned companies should be moved over to Mr Gigaba. Perhaps he is better off without the extra noise. But he will need quickly to form his own ideas. Should they be returned to their “own†departments? Or remain under the Department of Public Enterprises to run themselves like private sector companies?
Mr Zuma, it seems, is agnostic provided they don’t cause him personal political problems. Mr Gigaba must learn quickly to protect both Mr Zuma’s neck and the financial and managerial integrity of the vast companies over which he now has dominion.