The Black Business Council (BBC) has accused the public works minister, Dean MacPherson, of poking his nose in the operational matters of the Independent Development Trust (IDT), the public entity in charge of rolling out social infrastructure across South Africa.
MacPherson is in the government as a minister through the DA ticket.
BBC president Elias Monage told Sunday World on Friday that his organisation is demanding an audience with the minister to address issues related to his alleged interference.
Tension has been brewing between MacPherson and the IDT bosses over issues relating to tenders, administration and organisational affairs of the state-owned entity.
Monage said MacPherson, in his public responses, had insisted that proactive oversight is needed to halt possible corruption in IDT-handled projects, including a major multi-million-rand oxygen plant contract for public hospitals.
However, the BBC and other critics claimed that constitutional boundaries and governance norms have been repeatedly sidelined by the minister.
Monage said MacPherson had been targeting black executives in the IDT.
“MacPherson cannot act like a bull in a china shop. His aim is to capture or reshape the IDT board, as he wants to install his loyal trustees, and potentially oust CEO Tebogo Malaka.
“The minister maintains that the existing board is dysfunctional or compromised, necessitating decisive action to ensure accountability,” he said.
The BBC’s stance comes after a series of events where MacPherson was accused of trying to undermine the independence of the IDT board and meddling in the executive operations related to the expansion of fewer than 20 sites at R216-million to an estimated 60 sites, with a final cost of R800-million.
The expansion that was co-funded by the Global Fund, which issued no objection letter to the IDT.
Monage said that complaints that some companies in the oxygen plant tender lacked valid South African Health Products Regulatory Authority (Sahpra) credentials, and used ghost addresses or submitted expired certificates was nonsense.
He said that current indications suggest that MacPherson’s assertions regarding corruption or grave irregularities lean heavily on partial documentation such as allegedly dubious Sahpra licences and journalistic findings rather than a conclusive forensic audit or a formal outcome from the Special Investigating Unit.
“This does not automatically disprove concerns raised by the minister but the absence of a published official inquiry leaves the ultimate legitimacy of these accusations uncertain.”
Responding to Sunday World, MacPherson said: “No one from the BBC has had the courtesy to raise any issues with me about IDT. I would encourage them to do so and not rely on false information provided by compromised individuals. In short, I do not run the IDT, the CEO and Trustees do. I am not subjected to a cadre deployment committee system so do not test “loyalty”. I am only interested in competence which has been lacking.”
