Gauteng Economic Development MEC Firoz Cachalia announced a materially 
reduced meeting fee structure for Blue IQ board members last week, having described the previous fee structure, which led to the payment of R4-million to 12 board members for 13 meetings in 2009, as “excessive”.

However, he stressed that the surge in payments over the past two years had arisen primarily as a result of unexpected consequences from the fee structure itself, rather than from any action taken by board members, who “never determined their own fees”.

“Therefore, negative imputations with 
regard to decisions made on the policy governing board fees made by my predecessors and the ethics of the members of the board are incorrect and unfair,” Cachalia said.

Nevertheless, the MEC still acknowledged that the fees received “were indeed excessive” when compared with fees received by board members at other Gauteng agencies.

The Blue IQ chairperson would now receive R10 000 for scheduled meetings instead of R25 000 a meeting, while other board members would receive R7 500 instead of the previously scheduled R20 000. 
Members would receive R5 000 for special meetings instead of R7 500, and could claim R625 an hour for ad hoc meetings, having 
hitherto been entitled to claim R937,50 an hour.

The previous fee structure had been in place since 2005 and Cachalia said that the increase in claims had arisen owing primarily to an 
increase in the number of meetings held. This increase had arisen as the agency and its 
activities became more complex, following the creation of a number of subagencies, some of which were to be liquidated following a review of the province’s economic agencies.

Addressing the media in Johannesburg, following Blue IQ’s annual general meeting (AGM), Cachalia said that the interim fee structure would continue until the creation of the new Gauteng Development Agency, in April.

The new agency would rationalise the 
activities of Blue IQ, the Gauteng Development Agency and the Gauteng Enterprise Propeller into one organisation.

Further benchmarking was required to 
finalise both the meeting fee structure and the remuneration policy for the new agency, 
as Cachalia was not yet satisfied that the 
interim arrangement represented a “fair board remuneration framework”.

All the agency’s board members, besides the chairperson, Noedine Isaacs Mpulo, who did not make herself available for reappointment, would serve on the new board, which was appointed at the AGM. Bongani Phakhathi would take over as chairperson. In addition, Doris Dondur and Abel Mawela would join the board, which would comprise six nonexecutive directors and CEO Amanda Nair.

Cachalia also announced that several subsidiaries, including some that had been shown to have behaved irregularly in two forensic 
audits initiated by the Blue IQ board, would be rationalised, or liquidated.

Among those earmarked for closure, were Blue Catalyst Investments and associated 
entities, The Matching Fund and Genesis Fitness, the Greater Newtown Development Company and the Gauteng Motorsport Company, which was already in the throes of liquidation.

Cachalia dismissed a media report suggesting that the Gauteng Legislature’s standing committee on public accounts (Scopa) had 
initiated an investigation into Blue IQ, the outcome of which could be handed to the police.

“There is no Scopa investigation,” Cachalia said, noting that all the probes to date had been initiated by the Blue IQ board and that civil and criminal action against “identified wrongdoers is being implemented through the relevant authorities”.