One wonders why anyone would even begin to try to justify, or make excuses for, a R19-million pay package, in this case given to Reuben September, the CEO of that haven of mediocrity, Telkom.<\/p>\n
To get some perspective on his package, and the outrageousness thereof, in the past financial year September pocketed no less than R9134 an hour, R73000 a day or a massive R365384 a week, assuming an eight-hour work day.<\/p>\n
Don’t even bother to compare him to the average worker. His weekly salary is more than most highly skilled workers and professionals earn in a year.<\/p>\n
In the three weeks that he is on leave, he earned more than R1-million.<\/p>\n
If I were on the Telkom board, I would demand my pound of flesh (1.3-million pounds, actually, if one converts September’s pay at the current exchange rate) — not that, in Grapevine’s opinion, anyone can be so good and indispensable that they are worth so much money.<\/p>\n
And if I were one of those people still waiting for Telkom to replace my stolen cables, I would be livid.<\/p>\n
Close call for Mvela<\/strong><\/p>\n Interesting that Mvelaphanda and Och-Ziff Capital Management have pulled out of their proposed acquisition of the very same Telkom.<\/p>\n The reason given was market conditions and pricing considerations, but there were big question marks about why Mvela was interested in the first place.<\/p>\n Without Vodacom, Telkom has a long way to go before it can make investors believe it has a compelling future strategy. And, as we all know, it even finds managing its core business a bit of a challenge. <\/p>\n