The Deputy Minister of Finance and Public Enterprises, Maureen Hinda-Mbuende, has called on Chief Executive Officers to ensure that Boards of Directors are accountable for funds wasted on unconstructive labour issues.

Maureen Hinda-Mbuende was speaking at the annual general meeting of the Public Enterprises Chief Executive Officers at Rietfontein in the Otjozondjupa Region.

Chief Executive Officers are ultimately accountable for a company's business decisions, and the Public Enterprises CEO's Forum was therefore established to promote and encourage public enterprises to ensure uniformity, establish business value, and add building blocks for each public enterprise.

"I think it is high time that we look into that issue and see to it that managing directors or boards of directors are kept accountable for funds wasted on labour issues that are not constructive. I am a product of the abuse of power. I have been in the labour court for seven years. I went to the Supreme Court to prove myself. And on the day of judgement, what the judges' comments were is what the board of directors could have said if the board of directors were transparent and authentic. The company spent $4 to $5 million to fight a case that was grossly unfair."

Hinda-Mbuende has also appealed to CEOs to treat their subordinates with respect and consideration.

Also speaking at the dinner was the Minister of Education, Arts, and Culture, Anna Nghipondoka, who implored the CEOs to assist in finding a solution to the challenges facing the education sector.

This includes a backlog of more than 6,000 classrooms.

"The expansion of digital learning and e-learning is very important. When COVID hit, people were calling for e-learning, but there are no computers at schools, no laptops, and some schools are not connected to the internet, so it was really a problem for us to cope with COVID. That's why, as much as we say COVID was a problem, COVID was a problem because our education system was not shock absorbent enough or resilient enough, and we could not cope because of the backlog of many things."

The Public Enterprises CEO's Forum has also organised sports games, which will continue until Saturday at the Rietfontein National Youth Service Sports Field.