Affirmative action row erupts over Armscor CE
TOP GUNS
By HENRY LUDSKI
GOVERNMENT arms procurement agency Armscor has been rocked by an affirmative action row over the appointment of its first black chief executive.
Sipho Thomo was appointed in December despite claims that he lacked experience in running an organisation the size of Armscor.
Top management consultants Woodburn Mann and Thomo's predecessor Llew Swan both said Thomo, an engineer, needed to work for a few years in a more junior role.
Thomo, who has declined to comment, joined Armscor from Transwerk, a Transnet subsidy, where he was deputy CE.
Swan quit as Armscor CE after a series of clashes with the board and chairman Ron Haywood over day-to-day running of Armscor.
He was brought in the year before to use his 20 years of private sector experience to turn around the poorly performing parastatal.
Haywood this week defended Thomo's appointment.
He said the board had been evaluating Thomo since he was made acquisitions manager in September 1998, and he had scored "full-marks".
"In the final analysis, he can do the job," said Haywood.
Armscor hired Woodburn Mann, specialists in selecting corporate executives, late last year to evaluate the man they were grooming as top gun.
The consultants produced a report saying he wasn't ready for the job.
But the eight-member Armscor board, which includes chief of the SA National Defence Force Siphiwe Nyanda and prominent SA businessmen, went ahead with the appointment. Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota also supported the appointment, said Armscor corporate affairs general manager Elias Phiyega.
He said the Armscor board was "satisfied" that Thomo had been "ready to be promoted".
Phiyega described Thomo's appointment as "an important step in the transformation of Armscor".
Armscor and Haywood refused to comment on the Woodburn Mann report, saying it was confidential.
Dr Trevor Woodburn, managing director of the management consultancy, also declined to comment.
But Business Times has confirmed the content of the report that was disregarded by the board.
Thomo's appointment was one of a range of operational issues over which Swan and Haywood clashed.
A well-placed Armscor source said Swan quit over alleged board interference in the day-to-day running of the agency.
"As board chairman Haywood was meant to come into the Armscor offices about twice a week. But instead he was in the office all the time looking over people's shoulders," said a senior member of staff.
"Attempts by Llew to run Armscor more professionally was greatly frustrated by Haywood," he said.
Another Armscor insider said: "Llew's sudden departure left a lot of people at Armscor stunned. He had more than 20 years experience in the private sector and was respected in the industry."
Haywood denied clashing with Swan. He said: "I had a good relationship with Llew Swan and the parting was very amicable."
He said Armscor was responsible for putting together the R30-billion arms procurement contracts.
"No organisation in which there was any friction could have put this together," said Haywood.
Questions about the relevance of Armscor, which was a sanctions-busting wing of the apartheid government, has led the government to appoint a special task team to review the 31-year-old Armscor Act.
The Defence Force is also anxious to play a more direct role in the procurement process and eventually Armscor is likely to be absorbed into the Defence Secretariat.
While Haywood acknowledged that the Armscor Act was "totally out of date", he dismissed the speculation about the parastatal's continued relevance.
Top of page
|
Home Page |
News |
BT Money |
Survey |
Companies |
People |
Appointments |
World |
Markets |
Trends |
Columns |
News Maker |
Money Guides |
Labour Guides |
Calculators |
Search |
Archive |
E-Mail us |
| 
