According a media report the board of PetroSA suspended two directors on June 19 2015 after they declined to take “gardening leave” while the directors investigated the state of the company’s finances. The chief financial officer, Lindiwe Mthimunye-Bakoro, is challenging her suspension in the High Court this week on the ground that ‘despite being an executive director and member of the board, she was not invited to the board meeting at which the decision on her suspension was taken’. Ms Mthimunye-Bakoro is also contending in her affidavit that the board as a whole is responsible for the financial health of PetroSA and not her alone. She claims the board was acting under the influence of Energy Minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson in taking action against her. In response, the board argues that it was correct to act as it did as it was not appropriate that she be invited to a meeting where she would have been unable to participate since the agenda concerned her status directly.
According to Documents in suspension battle reveal PetroSA’s financial disaster, a report written by Carol Paton and first published in BDLive today, the scale of the financial disaster unfolding at state-owned petroleum company PetroSA has been publicly revealed in court documents in which executives disclose that it will face a R14.9bn loss when it finalises its accounts for the past financial year.