South Africa"s GijimaAst last week announced several changes to its board of directors. Joining the board are Kalaa Mpinga, Cheslyn Mostert, Andrew Mthembu, and Dr Judith Dlamini. Non-executive director, Charles Meintjies, has resigned to focus on his duties at Kumba Resources.

GijimaAst CEO, John Miller, says these moves are a further step towards the company"s goal of total transformation. "When we did the empowerment deal that gave Gijima a 32 percent shareholding, we said we would continue to work on all levels of empowerment, from equity, to top management, the board, employees at all levels and affirmative procurement. We said, six or so weeks ago, that we were making a commitment to the market that 40 percent of our directors would be black by the end of 2005. So, we are now six months ahead of plan in terms of getting the board to where we committed it to be."

"Our new board members have been carefully chosen for particular reasons," he adds. "Andrew Mthembu clearly understands the telco and ICT space extremely well in SA and Africa, as he built Vodacom"s business outside of SA, for example."

Miller says that, having tied up its equity and board commitments on the BEE side, the company is now focusing on its top management. "We cannot make any announcement yet," he says, "but will be doing so at the financial year-end."