The continuing malpractice within SABS

Dear Editor

The South African Bureau of Standards (SABS) is a crucial institution in the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition, with its mandate to ensure products bought and sold in our country meet quality standards and are internationally competitive.

Its governance has been unstable since the State Capture years when Minister Rob Davies used SABS to fraudulently issue regulatory certificates from coal sourced from Gupta’s Tegeta mine. It was then forced into administration in 2018.

Matters did not improve in the previous 6th Parliament when the Bureau failed to appoint and maintain senior management officials for considerable periods, as matters of maladministration continued.

It therefore came as a shock to hear from a whistleblower within the Bureau that its internal governance issues persist, as taxpayer funds continue to be misappropriated without checks or accountability. The current Board does not quorate, while its Board Chair remains acting. This means its decisions have been illegal in terms of the Standards Act (No. 8 of 2008).

Other allegations brought forward by the whistleblower include:

• The Board has deliberately not appointed a CEO in the last 18 months so that they can revolve and rotate the current executives so that accountability for corruption is shifted. This rotation is causing confusion amongst all stakeholders and enables the non-performance of the organisation.
• The SABS has lost accreditation of its cement labs for the second time and the acting CEO has removed all accountability from himself by suspending the levels that are lower than him.
• The collapse of the performance management system and processes for the last EIGHT years is deliberate to keep the dysfunction so that the executives and the Board keep looting.

These allegations are made at a time when SABS has been badly affected by a strike by Nehawu employees over grading and wage issues which the Minister has to date failed to resolve satisfactorily.

As the 7th Parliament and GNU present South Africa with an opportune moment to rid our country of malpractices in the past, I have written to the Acting Director General and Minister of Trade, Industry and Competition to alert them to ongoing malpractice within SABS and to extend our helping hand as DA MPs in ensuring effective oversight and accountability. Download the letter here.

In a Department so crucial to our country’s development, we cannot afford persistent bad practices continuing.

Regards

Toby Chance MP
DA Spokesperson on Trade, Industry and Competition