SIYABONGA Gama, the CEO of the South African logistics and freight company, Transnet, has filed a notice of his intention to stop the company’s board from terminating his contract, according to a report by BusinessLive.
Transnet is responsible for managing the 76MMt/y coal line that runs from South Africa’s Limpopo and Mpumalanga province coal mines to Richards Bay Coal Terminal in the country’s KwaZulu-Natal province.
Gama wants the Labour Court to order that the notice calling on him to give reasons why he should not be fired constitutes “… wrongful and unlawful anticipatory breach of the applicant’s contract of employment”.
Popo Molefe, chairman of Transnet, said in a statement on September 27 that the board’s relationship with Gama had broken down, and that Gama had been asked to leave his office whilst an investigation into the purchase of the locomotives from China was investigated.
“My name is Siyabonga Gama and I am the group CEO of Transnet,” said Gama in response to a question posted after a presentation at the Joburg Indaba mining conference, held in Johannesburg earlier this month.
In respect of the purchase of locomotives, Gama said it was “the correct decision” to order the items. “We actually needed 1,400 locomotives. For people who are as young as I am, the last time Transnet bought locomotives was about 1988. The average life of a locomotive for a world class freight company is about 12 years,” he said.
