Ministerial, SOE Board Roles Must Remain Separate

Before 2004, companies and any other bodies corporate were regulated by the Companies Act, 61 of 1973.

During 2004, parliament enacted a law called the Companies Act, 28 of 2004 and its purpose was to provide for the incorporation, management and liquidation of companies.

This act defined a director as any person occupying the position of director or alternate director of a company by whatever name that person may be designated.

In terms of the old act, the business and affairs of a company must be managed by or under the direction of its board of directors who has the authority to exercise all of the powers and perform all the functions of the company, except to the extent that the act or its articles of association provide otherwise.

There were no state-owned enterprises up until 2006 when parliament enacted a law called the Public Enterprises Governance Act, 2 of 2006 as amended by the State-owned Enterprises Governance Amendment Act, 5 of 2008 and lastly the Public Enterprises Governance Act, 1 of 2019, which seems to be repealed.