Puleng Sejanamane has been appointed CEO of the state-owned Broadband Infraco by public enterprises minister Malusi Gigaba.

“This is one of the final building blocks being put into place to re-establish the leadership team at Infraco, under the guidance of a revitalised and re-energised board,” Gigaba’s department said on Wednesday.

Sejanamane takes over from acting CEO Andrew Shaw, who headed up the company since March 2011. “The minister also thanks the acting CEO … for stabilising Infraco during a difficult time.”

Infraco received a qualified audit in February last year due to irregular expenditure of R151m, and fruitless and wasteful expenditure of R1,9m.

The parastatal is meant to lower communication costs by making infrastructure available to competing private-sector players.

Infraco received a tongue-lashing from Gigaba in September last year. This was after he studied the damning audit report and an anonymous letter sent to the presidency and the public protector. The letter alleged further rot at the company.

In October, the minister filled four vacancies on the company’s board and replaced three nonexecutive board members. Three of the 11 board members reportedly had shares in companies which were awarded contracts with the parastatal.

Sejanamane was chief marketing and sales officer at Infraco since December 2011. Before that she spent just over three years as GM of carrier services at MTN SA. — Sapa