Vodacom Group is spending about R7.7-million/12 months on private safety for its CEO, Shameel Joosub – a determine that surfaces solely by means of a quiet restatement of final 12 months’s numbers and that the corporate nonetheless doesn’t disclose as a line of its personal.
The fee sits contained in the “different” advantages line of Joosub’s single-figure remuneration desk within the group’s FY2026 built-in report, revealed final week. That line got here to R7.74-million for the 12 months to 31 March 2026. A footnote describes it as masking “safety preparations supplied because of the threat profile of the position” along with a cellphone profit – with out splitting the 2.
The dimensions of the safety element turns into clear solely when the FY2026 report is about in opposition to its predecessor. Within the FY2025 built-in report, the identical “different” line for Joosub was simply R19 800, described then as nothing greater than the Vodacom cellphone profit.
Within the new report, that prior-year determine has been restated upwards to R7.32-million to mirror the safety association. The roughly R7.3-million distinction is the safety value that was added to the prior 12 months after the very fact, and the modest cellphone invoice confirms that just about your complete current-year “different” line is safety spending.
The restatement just isn’t beauty. Joosub’s reported FY2025 whole single-figure remuneration rises from the R71.1-million initially revealed to R78.4-million within the new report, with the roughly R7.3-million hole accounted for nearly completely by safety being pulled into the figures.
Sars ruling
Requested why the prices appeared solely from FY2026, Vodacom informed TechCentral that the South African Income Service issued a ruling through the 12 months confirming that the safety preparations represent a fringe profit. As soon as that ruling was made, the corporate mentioned, the prices have been introduced into its remuneration disclosures and the prior 12 months was restated to make sure comparability and consistency.
Chief monetary officer Raisibe Morathi reveals the identical sample on a smaller scale. Her FY2025 “different” line, initially R6 365, has been restated to R1.05-million, implying a safety element of about R1-million. Her FY2026 determine of R855 963 is decrease once more, suggesting a lighter and shrinking association than the CEO’s. Taken collectively, Vodacom is spending within the area of R8.5-million/12 months defending its two most senior executives.
What the built-in report doesn’t do is put a standalone quantity on the safety spend. The fee stays bundled with a cellphone advantage of round R20 000, leaving shareholders to reconstruct the determine by evaluating two years of experiences.
Learn: The lacking quantity in Vodacom’s annual report
That reticence is, in equity, near the South African norm. A discrete safety safety determine just isn’t one thing the JSE listings necessities, the Corporations Act or the King codes compel an organization to publish, and few if any listed South African corporations break one out. On this measure Vodacom has gone barely additional than most by reflecting the price in its pay tables in any respect – whereas nonetheless stopping in need of naming it.
Rival MTN Group discloses even much less. Its FY2025 remuneration report, the fuller of its two pay disclosures, breaks group president and CEO Ralph Mupita’s R75.7-million earned single determine into wage, retirement contributions, short- and long-term incentives and an undefined “different advantages” line of R1.37-million.
Nowhere does MTN’s report title private safety as a price, itemise what the “different advantages” line incorporates or restate a previous 12 months to convey such spending into view. No matter MTN spends defending Mupita is both absent from its disclosures or buried unexplained in that line – itself a fraction of the determine Vodacom has surfaced.
The distinction with the US is stark. There, the Securities and Change Fee requires any sweetener above the larger of US$25 000 or 10% of an govt’s whole perks to be quantified, producing onerous numbers every proxy season. Private safety has develop into a mainstream disclosure: by one rely 1 / 4 of S&P 500 CEOs now obtain safety advantages, up from 18% a 12 months earlier, at a median of about $75 000/govt – although the highest spenders run to $1.2-million and past.
On the excessive finish sits Meta Platforms.
The Fb and Instagram proprietor reported whole FY2024 compensation of $27.2-million for CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the substantial majority of it safety associated, together with a $14-million annual pre-tax safety allowance, up from $10-million the 12 months earlier than, on prime of the direct value of defending him at his houses and through journey.
That single safety programme exceeds the mixed CEO-protection spend of Apple, Nvidia, Amazon, Google and Microsoft, and dwarfs the $6.8-million Google spends on Sundar Pichai or the $1.4-million Apple spends on Tim Prepare dinner. Towards that backdrop Joosub’s R7.7-million – about $470 000 – is modest, even when it might rank above the everyday S&P 500 chief govt.
Learn: Strain builds on Vodacom’s South African cell enterprise
The irony is that South African executives arguably face a sharper bodily safety menace than their American counterparts, but function below a weaker conference round disclosing what that safety prices. As pay-gap reporting below the amended Corporations Act and stress from shareholder activists push extra remuneration element into the open, what listed corporations spend conserving their leaders protected – and whether or not they say so plainly – is unlikely to remain buried in a restated footnote endlessly. — © 2026 NewsCentral Media
