The head of Transnet, Maria Ramos is going to leave Transnet at the end of February next year and take over as the head of Absa, replacing Steve Booysen as chief executive. There is no doubting Ramos’ credentials. There are very few people available who could do a greater job than she has done. She took over at Transnet in 2003 and then it was making a loss of R6.3 billion but now Transnet has posted a profit of R4.3 billion. A great turnaround in such a short space of time. Of note in this transformation was Ramos’ decision to move ownership of loss-making SAA (South Africa Airways) back to the government and sell the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront property in Cape Town for $1 billion (R11 billion).

What has caught many peoples attention about Ramos’ move to Absa is the fact that her partner is Trevor Manuel who is the minister of finance in South Africa. Some have wondered if this is not a conflict of interest; Minister of finance being in a personal relationship with the soon to be head of one of the biggest banks in country.

Ramos has come out and said, “First and foremost, I am a professional person. I can’t pretend that the minister of finance isn’t my partner. I live my personal life with integrity.”

What will be interesting is if the banks in South Africa go through the same ‘crunch’ the other world banks are facing and they need to be bailed out by the government. Surely, Manuel would have to decide which banks gets bailed out, how much they get etc. and you can not help but wonder if he would give a little bit more priority to Absa in such a case.

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