'The damage done by Brown will be felt for a long time'

The Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) has welcomed the resignation of former public enterprises minister Lynne Brown as a member of parliament.

“This resignation has been a long time coming. Brown failed in her duties as the minister of public enterprises and compromised government by not scrutinizing information provided to her by the Eskom board and for violating the executive ethics code‚” said Outa’s CEO‚ Wayne Duvenage.

He said the organisation had previously made several calls for Brown to resign.

“While we were relieved to see Brown removed from her ministerial position during this week’s cabinet reshuffle‚ the damage caused by her inefficiency during her tenure has had significant impact on state-owned enterprises‚ which will be felt for some time‚” Duvenage added.

Brown resigned as MP days after being fired as minister of public enterprises. Her decision to quit as a member of the national assembly was announced by the office of ANC chief whip Jackson Mthembu on Thursday.

Brown is among several ministers who were axed from their position by President Cyril Ramaphosa in a cabinet reshuffle on Monday.

As public enterprises minister‚ Brown had a controversial tenure as she became implicated in allegations of the mismanagement of Eskom and other parastatals such as Denel and Transnet that fell under her political leadership. Brown’s name had been mentioned in alleged capture of the state by the Gupta family.