National Empowerment Fund CEO earns R2m more than President Cyril Ramaphosa: DA

14 November 2019 - 07:32 By TimesLIVE
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National Empowerment Fund (NEF) CEO Philisiwe Mthethwa.
National Empowerment Fund (NEF) CEO Philisiwe Mthethwa.
Image: WALDO SWIEGERS/ SUNDAY TIMES

National Empowerment Fund (NEF) CEO Philisiwe Mthethwa, with a combined salary package of more than R6m, earns R2m more than President Cyril Ramaphosa.

This, according to the DA, makes Mthethwa one of the highest paid public servants in the country.

Party MP Dean Macpherson said in a statement that the NEF had “little money to do its work”.

Mthethwa’s package includes a R2m bonus, he said.

Macpherson said the NEF was set up in 1998 to provide capital funding for black entrepreneurs and “while their initial work showed some success after being funded by government, repeated budget cuts have rendered the entity without funding, except to fund their overpaid executives at a combined total of more than R17 million”.

The DA believed the objectives of the NEF were best served by being incorporated into the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC). “This is something that the parliamentary committee for trade and industry has discussed for a number of years, yet little action has been taken,” he said.

“The time for talking is over. We cannot spend money to fund the lifestyles of overpaid civil servants at the expense of entrepreneurs who are desperate to scale up their businesses and create jobs.”


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