Skulduggery at the expense of transparency seems to have become the byword associated with some of our public institutions.
Some charged with the welfare of stated-owned enterprises (SOEs) are so self-centred they put their own interests first.
To put this piece into perspective, we should say the job of a CEO is usually the most coveted but sadly in some cases many see it as a shortcut to instant wealth by hook or by crook.
Staff members are made to believe CEOs are infallible, all-powerful demigods, who can do whatever they want and are magically competent and are not accountable to anyone, not even to boards of directors.
Of course, the opposite is true as CEOs or MDs are humans and in any business should be held accountable for each decision made and for every company penny spent.
They could also be held liable or be fired if their decisions are found wanting.
But some boardrooms seem to have been turned into gangster alleys where some CEOs plot on how best they could rip off the corporations they undertook to serve to the best of their intellectual competencies.
We are not saying all CEOs are the same. All we are saying is the fact that some boardrooms lack accountability and they have thrown good corporate governance out the window.
The erosion of business ethics and corporate governance at some of the SOEs is to blame for the quagmire in which some of these public institutions are entrapped.
Part of this problem could be traced to the appointment of inept boards that have failed to stem the rot at some of the SOEs.
Some boards were obviously appointed on the basis of patronage, resulting in their interest being the hefty sitting allowances, freebie lunches and a host of other perks.
Despite government investing a king’s ransom in many SOEs, there is little to show in terms of growth and dividends.
One of the SOEs that have been bailed out with taxpayers’ funds is TransNamib, the transport parastatal whose multi-million-dollar procurement of trains not so long ago raised more questions than answers.
We are being told this parastatal yet wants more funds to buy more trains before the public is briefed what happened to the obsolete fleet of grounded Chinese trains.
Apparently TransNamib plans to buy “critical equipment” for N$45.3 million, including locomotives for N$19.2 million.
Ten years ago, TransNamib spent tens of millions of dollars on locomotives that were grounded barely two years after their procurement.
These trains are now bound for the scrap-yard. It seems none of the managers at TransNamib will be held accountable and most certainly it will be business as usual.
At the time, the trains were shipped into the country there were reports of some managers who smuggled goods they hid in the shipment of Chinese locomotives.
What was more notable from the locomotives were the multiple engine failures comprising 265 breakdowns experienced up to the period 2007.
TransNamib scrambled some spin doctors at the time to appease the public with their version that the multiple engine failures were because of lack of spare parts from the supplier and that the trains were not suitable for Namibian conditions.
Another narrative was that our railway lines were not compatible to these locomotives. But one could equally ask how could any person worth his salt buy something without knowing its suitability?
This boils down to a lack of good business ethics and skulduggery and the culprits knowing they will not be taken to task.