Gordhan rips into Parliament over SAA grilling

[Nat Quinn]

Gordhan rips into Parliament over SAA grilling

Public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan had harsh words for Democratic Alliance (DA) MP Mimmy Gondwe this week over a parliamentary report on the now-terminated deal to sell a 51% stake in South African Airways (SAA) for R51.

According to a Sunday Times report, Gordhan told Gondwe that he would have the report reviewed and described her behaviour as undignified.

“I have not appeared before parliament in my personal capacity. As a result, a review of the report will be done in my official capacity as the minister of public enterprises,” the minister said.

“It is my legal right to take the report on review if I am advised that there is a legal basis for that. No one, including you, will threaten me not to exercise my legal rights to take the report on review.”

“It is clear that you have been directed by your party bosses to behave in this undignified way — to make whatever capital you can as part of your party’s campaign. You will fail,” added Gordhan.

Gondwe retaliated, accusing the minister of belittling her and her agency as a public representative.

The feud erupted after Gondwe objected to Gordhan using public money to put the parliamentary report on irregularities surrounding the deal to sell 51% of the government’s stake in SAA on review.

In March 2024, Gordhan lashed out at Khaya Magaxa, an ANC MP and chair of the portfolio committee on public enterprises, after he called for a Special Investigation Unit (SIU) investigation into the SAA deal.

The minister accused Magaxa of “playing to the public gallery” and “politicising a parliamentary process that is supposed to be free of any influence”.

“Magaxa appears instead to have gone on what increasingly looks to be a rogue campaign to accuse and convict the DPE, and by extension minister Pravin Gordhan, of impropriety without a shred of verifiable evidence,” said Gordhan’s spokesperson Elias Mnyandu.

He also accused Magaxa of seeing fit to “conflate issues by entertaining new lies”.

“Mr Magaxa has turned a legitimate oversight exercise into a kangaroo court at which the DPE and its staff have been slandered, denigrated and pilloried for the sake of politicking,” said Mnyandu.

This minister’s allegations follow the decision to cancel a deal to sell a majority stake of SAA — 51% — to the Takatso consortium for R51.

The National Treasury said it was never consulted during negotiations and argued that the terms of the deal were heavily skewed towards the buyer.

SAA will now revert to being 100% owned by the South African government.

“We are convinced that SAA can sustain itself in the next year to 18 months, and that there are various other ways in which immediate financing can be obtained,” Gordhan said in a statement.

He assured that the national airline wouldn’t get any money from the fiscus.

source:Gordhan rips into Parliament over SAA grilling (mybroadband.co.za)

[Author]

Posts