The Democratic Alliance (DA) has been reliably informed that South African Bureau of Standards (SABS) Acting CEO, Garth Strachan, has suddenly resigned after a spectacular fallout with the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) Director General (DG), Lionel October.
This stems from the portfolio committee’s oversight to the SABS this week where we were told that the entity is essentially bankrupt, will run out of cash in the next financial year and is battling to attract thousands of customers it lost under the previous delinquent Board and management which was dissolved under former DTI Minister Rob Davies.
The DA posed questions on what a ‘repurposed’ version of SABS would look like given the financial realities of impending bankruptcy which would have to involve staff retrenchments and liquidation of assets.
It is clear this question and Mr. Strachan’s answers led to the blow-out between him and the DG who seems completely opposed to this sensible and logical plan for SABS, and is more concerned with pacifying NEHAWU-affiliated employees who have embarked on an unprotected strike this week at the SABS.
There can be no doubt that the departure of Mr. Strachan will have a knock-on effect for exporters who rely on the SABS for quality assurance in international markets and for consumers who expect goods that display the SABS mark to meet minimum standards for health and safety.
This drama in the SABS must be urgently addressed by Minister Ebrahim Patel and for this reason that the DA will write to him and request the full reasons for Mr. Strachan’s resignation to be made known as well as a plan for the way forward.
The DA believes that the SABS has a big role to play in quality assurance to support our exporters and to give local consumers peace of mind which is why we believed in Mr. Strachan’s ‘repurposed’ version of the SABS and will continue to fight for it.