By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
Telkom has appointed Transnet executive Nonkululeko Dlamini as its new group chief financial officer with effect from 1 December. Dlamini will also be appointed as an executive director on the board.
The incumbent CFO Dirk Reyneke will step down from the board as of end-November and move into the role of chief capital projects officer. And non-executive director Mteto Nyati, who also serves on the Eskom board, has stepped down from Telkom, citing capacity constraints.
New CFO Dlamini is currently CFO at Transnet, the deeply troubled state-owned logistics company.
Before Transnet, she was CFO at the Industrial Development Corporation and acting CFO at Eskom, where she also held various other management positions.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) has slammed the appointment of fDlamini as the head of finance at Telkom.
Transnet announced on Friday that Dlamini, who joined the company in 2020, will leave with immediate effect, while CEO Portia Derby, who also joined Transnet three years ago, will vacate her office at the end of October.
On the same day, Telkom appointed Dlamini as CFO with effect from 1 December.
The DA’s communications shadow minister Natasha Mazzone says they don’t believe Dlamini will add any value to the financial management of the state-owned enterprise.
“The Minister of Communications and Digital Technologies, Mondli Gungubele, should immediately rescind the deployment of Dlamini as the new Chief Financial Officer of Telkom,” Mazzone said.
“It is a disgrace that, a few hours after she jumped the ship before she could be fired as Transnet CFO, Telkom did not waste time in announcing her as their new CFO”.
“The DA completely rejects this clear case of cadre recycling, which has been responsible for the collapse of the SOE sector in South Africa.”