Lessons the Sassa affair can teach us
A saga of corporate terror
The events relating to the social grants crisis show the importance of corporate governance and the link between the shareholders and the board
Some say the final straw was when Net1 UEPS CEO Serge Belamant suggested the SA Social Service Agency (Sassa) should use pigeons to distribute social grants; others believe it was when former finance minister Pravin Gordhan lambasted Belamant for his rudeness. That it had to take either of those to shake Net1 shareholders into action is indication of how dysfunctional our corporate governance system can be. When it became apparent just how bad things were, Net1 shareholders had two options. They could do a "Coronation" and dump the shares and run as everything imploded around them. Or they could hang around and try to behave like responsible shareholders (with an image to protect) and rein in management. That the Net1 shareholders opted to stay and try to influence management is to their considerable credit, though some cynics claim trading in Net1 shares is so sparse it would have taken decades to offload the volumes. But just as Coronation’s response to African Bank’s feral manage...
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