The dysfunction at the SA Bureau of Standards (SABS) is set to come under the spotlight when various portfolio committees hold their meetings in the National Assembly this week.
On Tuesday, trade, industry & competition minister Parks Tau will engage with parliament’s portfolio committee on trade, industry & competition on concerns raised by DA spokesperson on trade, industry & competition Toby Chance over the “dysfunction” at the SABS.
Chance revealed recently that critical systems have been inoperable for six weeks, “rendering the SABS unable to perform its most basic functions including product testing, issuing certificates, paying salaries or billing customers.
“The only functioning laboratory is the condoms laboratory while many others have no accreditation and clients cannot be serviced. This is putting businesses at risk as their systems and product certification is stalled or halted,” Chance said in a statement on January 21.
“We will use the portfolio committee meeting on January 28 to probe minister Parks Tau on his inaction in dealing with the SABS’ disaster-in-the-making.
“While minister Tau fiddles and dithers over the appointment of an independent investigation into governance and management failures at the SABS, the institution is imploding before our very eyes.”
‘Catastrophic failure’
Chance accused Tau of “ignoring the mounting evidence that the SABS is facing catastrophic failure due to the cyberattack it suffered in early December. It is the third attack in the past five years.
“What is worse, the SABS disaster recovery and backup systems have also been hacked, locked and encrypted. This means the SABS has no backups to restore and unless the hacker unlocks the IT systems, all of them will have to be rebuilt from scratch. This will take months at a minimum, perhaps years and at significant costs to the SABS to sort out.”
The DA has since called on Tau to place the SABS under administration and to appoint an independent investigator for three months to be able to deliver a final report on the SABS, to “minimise further damage to this institution”.
Also taking place on Tuesday, the portfolio committee on agriculture is expected to be briefed by an external expert on food safety implications after the contamination — by an agricultural pesticide — of food products from several spaza shops that resulted in several deaths.
On Wednesday, the portfolio committee on land reform and rural development is set to discuss the recent developments at Ingonyama Trust Board (ITB). Zulu King Misuzulu kaZwelithini elected to chair the ITB himself after firing the chair, Thanduyise Mzimela, whom he appointed barely nine months ago, the Sunday Times reported in February 2024. This was the first time since its formation that the trust is chaired by its sole trustee.
The portfolio committee on human settlements will on Thursday consider and adopt its first term programme and on Friday the portfolio committee on electricity and energy will be briefed by power utility Eskom on its 2023/24 financial report.
The ANC’s national working committee is due to meet today to decide on the composition of the interim party structures in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal. The party’s national executive committee decided to reconfigure the executives of the two provinces due to the ANC’s poor performance in last year’s elections.
The cabinet lekgotla will be held on Wednesday and Thursday.
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