In June last year, the then water affairs minister Nomvula Mokonyane dissolved the board of the Umgeni Water Board, leaving it without a permanent CEO or a board of directors. Though Umgeni has R1.5bn of bonds listed on the JSE, none of this was disclosed to investors or rating agencies and it was only after asset manager Futuregrowth raised the alarm that Umgeni issued a Stock Exchange News Service announcement in August last year.The incident highlighted the dearth of disclosure or governance requirements for JSE-listed bond market issuers, which are not subject to anything like the stringent rules with which equity market issuers have to comply. Last week the JSE published proposed debt-listing requirements that aim to change this, imposing tougher discipline, particularly on state-owned entities which have listed bonds but, unlike most private-sector corporate bond issuers, are not also listed on the equity market.These include Eskom, Transnet, Sanral and Umgeni, as ...
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