Dear Editor
In February this year, Minister of Trade, Industry and Competition, Parks Tau, under pressure from the Democratic Alliance, appointed TSU International to investigate allegations of maladministration at the South African Bureau of Standards (SABS) that had surfaced from last August. TSU’s report was due at the end of June.
In response to a letter I wrote to Tau asking why the report had not been released, the Minister said the investigation is ongoing and gave no date for the end of the probe.
It is unacceptable that six months have elapsed since Minister Tau commissioned the investigation, and still we have no date for its finalisation. In his response to me, he cites “unforeseen challenges encountered by the investigators” as the reason for the delay. Information from sources inside the SABS suggests the investigators received a frosty reception from individuals potentially implicated in wrongdoing by whistleblowers.
However, this should not be used as an excuse when many other employees have been eager to speak to the investigators to provide them with relevant information. This has enabled TSU to build up a comprehensive picture of what has been happening at the SABS to destabilise it and compromise its operations.
The TSU’s probe must not be stalled by political interference, and the DA will ensure that its report is tabled before Parliament during its next term, starting in October.
Reports have emerged that the new acting CEO, Mr Blake Mosely-Lefatola, has been putting pressure on departments to achieve their targets, even if this means they have to make short cuts to standard operating procedures. If these reports are correct, it is very concerning that the guardian of South Africa’s quality system is compromising its own quality standards to dress up its performance reporting to satisfy its departmental and political masters.
Another concern is the reported shedding of customers. I have received information that there are now no longer any companies/brands in one industry sector that use the SABS for testing purposes. The deterioration of the SABS capabilities and capacity forced them to test in laboratories abroad and the well-respected SABS Mark has been discarded. When challenged on this, the SABS claims the November cyber-attack has disabled many of its systems and prevented invoicing of customers. This suggests critical systems are still not functional, impairing the organisation’s ability to perform its most basic tasks.
As the situation at the SABS deteriorates, three senior NEHAWU office bearers await their disciplinary hearings due in October to answer to charges relating to a protest that took place in December last year. The DA has been provided with the charge sheets, which the plaintiffs claim have been inflated to make their misdemeanours look more serious than they really are. The SABS has contracted three separate law firms to support their case, each with three lawyers, while the plaintiffs have one legal representative between them. This imbalance of legal representation suggests an unfair process is unfolding that could pervert the course of justice.
It is for these reasons that Minister Tau must ensure that the TSU probe is wholly independent, with a strict timeline, and must be made available to the Portfolio Committee for interrogation. Any further delays can only further impede the process of identifying the problems and repairing them.
Regards
Toby Chance MP
DA Spokesperson on Trade, Industry & Competition