Please find attached soundbite by Toby Chance MP.
The South African Bureau of Standards (SABS) is facing an existential crisis. This became clear in yesterday’s meeting of the trade, industry and competition portfolio committee where the SABS presented its 2024/25 annual report.
Not a single board member was present at the meeting and the ministerial team and director general sent their apologies due to cabinet committee commitments. The acting CEO was off sick. This left the head of Compliance Risk & Legal Services to lead the SABS delegation.
What they presented was not a pretty sight. A ransomware cyberattack in November 2024 crippled its systems so badly it had to re-build them from scratch. The loss of data meant the annual report was published over a year late, while the Auditor General has yet to review the 2025/26 results.
The salient features of the 2024/25 revealed:
– A R69,5m operating loss and expenditure up 14.1% against income growth of 2.8%. Net interest of R51.6m softened the reported bottom line.
– An operating margin of -4.8% and operating cash ratio -6.9%.
– Only 56% (10 out of 18) KPIs achieved.
– 284 standards published against a target of 360, the lowest since 2020.
– Irregular expenditure of R52.2m
– Deficiencies in governance, oversight and internal controls contributing to compliance failures and operational risks
The SABS has received an unqualified audit with findings every year since 2019/20. Yet there has been zero consequence management for executives or responsible employees until, under pressure from the DA, Minister Tau appointed a forensic investigation by TSU International into governance failures in February 2025. Its report, presented to the portfolio committee in redacted form in May 2026, recommended disciplinary action against certain executives among a raft of other operational interventions.
The failure of the ministerial team, board members or the acting CEO to appear before the committee today (the DG arrived late and could not contribute meaningfully to the meeting) meant there was no opportunity to get an update on measures to implement the report’s recommendations. We could also not get answers relating to the request for proposal issued by the SABS for a review of its business model or how it plans to fund the refurbishment of its laboratories and critical equipment at an estimated cost of R1,6 billion.
In this information vacuum, the committee resolved, at the DA’s insistence, to conduct an urgent oversight visit to the SABS headquarters in Pretoria, with the ministerial team, board members and key executives present, to see for ourselves what needs to be done to turn this organisation around.
The SABS is at the heart of South Africa’s quality system and the SABS mark used to be a trusted signifier of quality for SA manufactured products. Its decline has to be reversed as part of the GNU’s commitment to appoint fit-for-purpose individuals on merit, rather than the rag-tag collection of misfits who have run this treasured institution into the ground.