Alpheus Mangale, chief executive of subsea cable operator Seacom, has resigned from the board of Absa Group, days after Seacom’s directors placed him on special leave while an independent party investigates complaints about how the company is run.
In a notice on the JSE News Service, Absa said Mangale stepped down as an independent non-executive director with effect from 8 October 2026, citing personal reasons and future commitments. He joined the bank’s board in July 2023 and sat on its Group Risk and Capital Management Committee, Remuneration Committee and Information Technology Committee. The bank thanked him for his service.
Seacom chairman Pieter Uys said the board had received allegations about the running of the company in which Mangale’s name was mentioned, but would not disclose what they related to. He described the leave as a precaution taken in line with good governance, said nothing suggested Mangale was guilty of anything, and noted that the investigator had been asked to report back within about a month. Mangale could not be reached for comment.
| Seacom at a glance | Detail |
|---|---|
| Seacom 2.0 estimated cost | $1.5bn–$2bn (R24bn–R32bn) |
| Cable length | 25,000km |
| Design capacity | 2,000Tbps (2Pbps) |
| Fibre pairs / landing points | 48 / 20 in 15 countries |
| Phase one completion target | Early 2030 |
| Original cable retirement | 2035 |
| Remgro stake | 30% |
| Contribution to Remgro headline earnings, FY2026 | R71m (FY2025: R12m) |
The timing is sensitive. Seacom is trying to raise between $1.5bn and $2bn (about R24bn to R32bn) for Seacom 2.0, a 25,000km subsea system linking Africa, Asia and Europe, and had been targeting the fourth quarter of 2026 to reach financial close. Mangale has been the public face of the project since it was unveiled in September 2025. Uys has described him as a driving force behind it.
The system will cover much of the same East African coastline as the original cable while adding an express route from South Africa to Singapore and a leg around South Africa to Lobito in Angola, using 48 fibre pairs. Seacom has said phase one should be complete by early 2030, with its original cable due for retirement in 2035. All existing shareholders, including Remgro and Andile Ngcaba’s Convergence Partners, have agreed to participate in the fundraising.
Seacom said chief financial officer Charl Slabbert, a chartered accountant with more than 26 years of experience in finance, strategy and operations across Africa and the United Kingdom, will serve as interim group CEO. The board is directing the process and operations continue as normal. Slabbert joined Seacom in April 2025 after senior finance and strategy roles at Vodacom and Cell C.
The leadership disruption follows a financial recovery. Seacom’s earnings rebounded after the 2024 Red Sea cable breaks, which took five months to repair, and its contribution to Remgro’s headline earnings rose to R71m in the year to 30 June 2026, from R12m. In the six months to December 2024, that contribution had fallen to just R2m.
Mangale succeeded Oliver Fortuin as CEO on 1 April 2023. He previously spent almost five years at Standard Bank, where he was group CIO and later head of IT engineering, resigning with immediate effect in June 2022 after a series of system outages. Earlier, he spent more than 15 years at Dimension Data as chief technology officer and chief operating officer, before leading Cisco’s South African operations and serving as chief enterprise officer at MTN South Africa.
His exit from Absa comes four years after his departure from Standard Bank.