Pillay to remain Saice CEO

The South African Institution of Civil Engineering (Saice) on Wednesday apologised “unreservedly” for a recent opinion piece, titled ‘Out on a Rib’ written by Saice CEO Manglin Pillay. Pillay came under fire earlier this week for the article, in which he said women choose to have the flexibility to dedicate themselves to enterprises such as family and the raising of children, rather than the beck and call of shareholders.

“The fact that more men occupy high profile executive posts is tremendous, not because of gender, but because of an appetite for work load,” he remarked in the opinion piece, which has been circulated on social media and which was published in Saice’s Civil Engineering magazine’s July edition.

“The board has announced that it has accepted an apology from Pillay and that processes are being implemented to deal with this matter internally. It has also confirmed that Pillay will remain as its CEO.

“While the publication of Pillay’s article was unfortunate, we cannot ignore his invaluable contribution to Saice and to the broader engineering sector over the past eight years. The board has accepted his apology and his acknowledgement of the public furore this has caused,” Saice president Errol Kerst said in a statement on Wednesday.

He added that the board had agreed to establish an inclusive team to intensify existing initiatives to redress gender and diversity issues within the engineering sector.