The Portfolio Committee on Mineral Resources and Energy has expressed concern about the corporate governance failures at the South African Nuclear Energy Corporation (Necsa).
The committee has also called on Minister Gwede Mantashe to urgently appoint a Necsa board.
A briefing earlier this week from management at Necsa, together with organised labour, sought to inform the committee about the state of affairs at the corporation.
This happened as a result of a follow-up meeting from an oversight visit in September, in which the committee learnt about the worsening financial constraints faced by the corporation, which could lead to the retrenchment of workers.
Committee chairperson Sahlulele Luzipo described the current situation at Necsa as “untenable” and called on Mantashe to “urgently look into the newly developed turnaround strategy and, thereafter, present it to the committee”.
“Our view is that there is no board at the corporation and there can never be stability,” Luzipo said, expressing further concern about the “lack of cooperation between the management and organised labour”, which he dubbed as “equally concerning”.
The committee has advised Necsa to pursue further engagement on how the challenges can be resolved.
However, the committee emphasised that, going forward, it would “not tolerate late or no tabling of annual reports” to Parliament by any entity under its portfolio.
The Necsa corporation consists of four subsidiaries, namely NTP Radioisotopes, Pelchem, Pelindaba Enterprises and Safari-1.
According to a statement on Wednesday, the corporation failed to table to Parliament its yearly report for the 2018/19 financial year on time.
The same happened in the last two financial years.