Public Enterprises minister, Leo Jooste, says government is mulling a review of remuneration packages offered for CEO positions in State Owned Enterprises (SOEs) as part of strategies to attract the best suited candidates for the job.
Jooste said the existing packages are not attractive enough to lure the desired candidates needed to lead the turnaround of some government owned entities.
“Our CEO remuneration packages are not always competitive and needs review to enable us to attract highly skilled individuals and we are looking into this,” he told The Brief.
The last review of perks for SOEs CEOs was done in 2019, when the 3-tier system was introduced, where CEOs are paid according to the parastatals’ income, number of workers, market share, skills and total assets.
SOE CEO perks after the review, range from N$545 000 to a maximum of N$1 million for tier 1, to N$964 000 – N$2 million per year in tier 3, including inflation adjustments, but excluding bonuses.
Quizzed on the government’s strategy to attract the best minds and skills for board and leadership positions, Jooste said, “there is no specific strategy to attract the best minds. We advertise publicly and make all attempts to attract people from various sectors equally.”
On foreign appointments to SOE positions such as CEO or boards, he said, “foreign appointments should only be considered in instances where rare skills are required that are not available domestically.”
If the Ministry was concerned about the competence levels of some boards and CEOs appointed to lead SOEs, considering the continued poor performance by some entities, Jooste said, “We have some excellent Board members and CEOs in a number of Public Enterprises. I believe that we have managed to attract stronger Board members of late and I am confident that these Boards will ensure that equally strong CEOs are appointed.”
On why some parastatals continue to engage consultants to craft business plans when there are existing boards and executives, he said “It depends on what the consultant are appointed for. In many cases the public entities generate the strategy and simply appoint a consultant to package it appropriately.”
The Ministry of Public Enterprises oversees the functions and responsibilities of the 98 parastatals.
