Appointment of new Postbank board won’t take longer than two months, says Gungubele

Communications minister Mondli Gungubele believes the appointment of a new Postbank board will not take more than two months as the department has started to look for new people after mass resignations last week.

In the absence of an oversight body at the entity, Gungubele appointed Khayalethu Ngema, who was a special adviser to his office, as the administrator of Postbank.

This after Postbank chair Thabile Wonci, Leigh Hefer-Hendrikse and Vuyelwa Matsiliza and three other members resigned from their board positions. One board member who had not resigned was fired by Gungubele. 

Currently at the helm of the entity is CEO Nikki Mbengashe and company secretary Nobuhle Sibeko who have only been employed at the bank for about two months.

Gungubele, who briefed the media on Thursday about the state of grant payments after 600,000 South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) beneficiaries payouts were delayed this month, said he was confident in the current leadership.

The minister said the absence of the board would not affect grant payments and other operations of the bank. 

“I do not think it will go beyond two months. We issued adverts [for board positions] on the same day [last week Thursday]. We mean business about making sure that this institution is in capable hands because this is a financial institution. Already the CEO who has come in hardly eight weeks ago has demonstrated her capability,” he said.

Gungubele was adamant that all grant beneficiaries who were affected by delays were paid their money by Thursday. 

“Noting that we will start with the October payment cycle in less than two weeks, we have started preparing to ensure that we do not encounter challenges that were experienced by our clients in this month,” he said. 

Mbengashe said the entity had fixed all errors in the grant payment system and was boosting technical capabilities to avoid another grant payout blunder. 

“We know what those issues are and they were fixed on day 1 — and we are ensuring anything that was picked up related to the issues, we make sure that is in place,” she said. 

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