'I will clean SOE rot', says new Transnet CEO Portia Derby

New Transnet CEO Portia Derby says she will not block any investigations at the state-owned company that may implicate her ex-husband, Brian Molefe, who headed the utility from 2011 until April 2015.

Derby, who was appointed by the cabinet on Friday, told the Sunday Times she was aware of potential conflicts that might arise in her new job. She will need to clean up the company that fell victim to state capture and looting, allegedly when Molefe was in charge.

"The one fair question is that there are these investigations that are happening and I am going to be the CEO of Transnet. I understand my fiduciary responsibility of one that is enabling any investigation that has to happen. It is in the interest of our country that we clean up the rot," Derby said.

Derby's appointment has been widely welcomed as a return of an experienced civil servant who served in the administration of Thabo Mbeki. She and many of her colleagues were then sidelined when Jacob Zuma became president.

During the Mbeki presidency, Derby was the director-general of public enterprises under then minister Alec Erwin.

With Derby's new appointment, concerns have been raised about a possible conflict of interest because of continuing investigations into the capture of Transnet by the Gupta family and their business associate Salim Essa while Molefe was the boss.

Derby was forthcoming about how she will manage these perceptions. She said she would be "overcautious at a whiff of a conflict". She said she had asserted herself as her own person and should not be made to answer for the mistakes of others.

"I find it funny now that my professional standard is contingent on another person.

Men never get questioned about their allegiances and their partners. It's only women who have to account for that

"For many years we worked in similar spaces and that level was never an issue. And suddenly, because his integrity is in question, my integrity becomes maligned," she said.

Derby said those close to her knew she had always been her own person and that she would not account for the actions of a man she divorced 10 years ago.

"To be honest, I reflected on minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma and many other women. Men never get questioned about their allegiances and their partners. It's only women who have to account.

"I have decided I am not accounting for that question. People will have to judge me on my own," she said.

Derby said she had told the Transnet board there should be a team set up to deal with the investigations into the looting that took place during Molefe's time at the company.

"I am going to make sure that everything is done to ensure that the investigation is done and there are no blockages in the company," she said.

The investigations point to Molefe paving the way for a Gupta-linked Chinese rail manufacturer to earn billion-rand contracts from the company.

Mncedisi Ndlovu & Sedumedi (MNS) Attorneys told the state capture commission that its investigation of procurement irregularities at Transnet pointed directly at Molefe.

Other witnesses at the commission, headed by deputy chief justice Raymond Zondo, have detailed how Molefe had a hand in corruption at Transnet.

Derby takes over Transnet at a time when the troubled company is reeling from the consequences of state capture.

She will need to entrench a culture of openness to ensure that the grand corruption which took place at Transnet does not happen again.

"If we don't find ways and means to ensure as much transparency as possible, we are going to be in trouble forever," Derby said.

She said procurement could not continue to be opaque.

Transparency within Transnet, she said, was important because most incidents of corruption took place in the lower echelons of the company, away from public scrutiny.

"There are a couple of things around capture ... [fixing it] is more about how you enable strategic procurement so that there is a long-term relationship between suppliers and the entity, which forces an open-book system," Derby said.

Speaking on potential future interference from Transnet's shareholder (the government, represented by the minister of public enterprises), Derby said there needed to be a standard procedure that detailed how politicians interacted with state-owned companies.

"What I think is critical is when the shareholder gives instructions, they [have] always got to be in writing and whenever somebody has to write they always think that bit harder about whether this is a requirement I have to make or not.

"Then it's not an act of war when the CEO or board says to a shareholder: 'Where's the instruction?' It's got to be written and because it's a written instruction it will be available to parliament, to the auditor-general and to the public," Derby said.

She suggested creating a model for publicly owned companies similar to the one the JSE requires of listed companies in providing information for shareholders.

Derby is optimistic about suggestions to amend the Public Finance Management Act and the possibility of a shareholder management act that will define the role of the minister as the shareholder as well as the role of the board.

She does not find the argument that the rail side of the entity must be separated from its operations compelling.

"There is a lot we have to do around modernising our thinking around how you run a railway system," she said.

She said that to fix Transnet she would have to focus on rail, which earns 80% of the company's revenues.

There is a lot we have to do around modernising our thinking around how you run a railway system

"You can't ignore that core truth."

Derby said Transnet needed to modernise to enable efficiency and innovation.

"Nobody thinks of a railway line being run like a scheduled service. You only think of airlines running scheduled services.

"Increasingly in the world, the best railway services, which operate in an efficient manner, run scheduled railway services," she said.

She wanted Transnet to play a role in increasing trade with the rest of Africa.

Derby will walk into the Transnet offices this week having interacted with many of the staff when she was at the department of public enterprises. She said she would use those connections to empower her to put efficient teams together.

Two weeks ago the Sunday Times reported that Derby was the preferred candidate for the Transnet top job.

At the time she appeared to confirm the appointment: "I did not take the decision to interview lightly. In the end I decided ukuthi ngiyathumeka [I'm willing to be sent]."

A report by MNS Attorneys and another by Fundudzi Forensic Services, commissioned by the National Treasury, found that Molefe misled the Transnet board on the total cost of the contract for 1,064 locomotives, increasing it from R36bn to R54.5bn.