soe governance
The great SOE (liability) vanishing act
In March, a public outcry saw the National Treasury do an about-turn on an exemption that let Eskom off the hook in reporting irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure for the next three years. But the Treasury has issued another exemption — Instruction Note 4 — that allows all SOEs to do much the same thing. Does this serve a valid purpose, or is it simply erasing the stain of past misconduct?
10 August 2023 - 05:03
“I’m on a mission to fix my own mistake,” jokes Ismail Momoniat, the acting director-general of the National Treasury. “Before I leave the public service, I want to have finished the review of the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA), so that we can fix the minor problems in it.”
Momoniat, a former maths lecturer who studied at the London School of Economics, was one of the architects of that law, implemented in April 2000, which was meant to introduce far greater accountability in how taxpayer money is spent. ..
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