The basic salary paid out to former Sentech CEO Sebiletso Mokone-Matabane more than doubled between 2009 and 2010 — from R1,7m to R3,2m.

This is in spite of the company’s steep financial decline over the past year, which has resulted in its auditors not giving it a clean bill of health and warning its sole shareholder — government — might have to come to its rescue.

In total, Mokone-Matabane was paid R4,5m (including pension and expenses), more than double the R2m she earned the previous year.

Mokone-Matabane’s nine-year term as CEO of Sentech came to an end in March this year, when she took “early retirement” just months before her term ended. Her early exit sparked speculation that she was asked to leave.

Her resignation came in the wake of a damning report on Sentech presented to communications minister Siphiwe Nyanda by a task team sent in to investigate the company’s health.

The report has not been made public, but Nyanda said recently that the task team had recommended a turnaround strategy be implemented as a matter of urgency.

Nyanda said the report found that Sentech was “rudderless, inadequately funded and misdirected” and was an unsustainable business.

The task team urged drastic and immediate action if Sentech was to avoid lapsing into terminal decline.

Despite this, Sentech’s annual report for the 2009/2010 financial year shows that Mokone-Matabane’s basic salary for the year amounted to a half the total paid out to the company’s entire executive team.

Controversial former acting CEO, Beverly Ngwenya, who took over from Mokone-Matabane, was paid just over R1,5m. Ngwenya resigned only four months after she was appointed as CEO, following allegations of charges of gross misconduct and reckless spending. She was previously chief operating officer.

Earlier this year, TechCentral revealed that Sentech’s auditors were worried about its ability to continue as a going concern.

In its annual report, the state-owned company echoes these worries and warns the department of communications may have to bail it out.

“In the event that the department of communication does not meet Sentech’s requests, there is significant doubt [regarding its] ability … to continue as a going concern as [it] may be unable to realise [its] assets and discharge [its] liabilities in the normal course of business,” the report states.

However, new Sentech chairman Quraysh Patel appears determined to get the business back on track. He has started the implementation of a turn-around strategy. — Candice Jones, TechCentral