DA to challenge pushing through of Public Enterprises Department’s budget report 

27 October 2016

The DA will challenge the pushing through of the Department of Public Enterprise’s (DPE) Budget Review and Recommendations Report (BRRR) by the Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Public Enterprises, Ms Letsatsi-Duba who has prematurely approved the report without consulting members of the committee. 

Furthermore the department’s report should have never been approved whilst Alexkor, an entity of the DPE, still hasn’t presented their annual report. To make matters worse, we are still waiting for Denel to answer fully, the questions on why they bypassed Treasury in their joint venture with Gupta owned VR-Laser Asia.  

Considering the aforementioned facts, it is preposterous that Chairperson Letsatsi-Duba would approve the DPE’s BRRR as it is not comprehensive with an annual report from an SOE missing in action. 

We will write to the Parliamentary Chair of Chairs, Cedric Frollick, requesting his intervention in this committee and we will also be writing to Public Enterprises Minister, Lynne Brown to caution her that any report bypassing the Portfolio Committee on Public Enterprises is a violation of parliamentary procedure and thus the Constitution.

It is our view that Ms Letsatsi-Duba is vetoing the appearance of a joint meeting with Denel, Treasury and Minister of Public Enterprises before the portfolio committee in order to whitewash the shocking extent of misconduct at these entities and to protect those accountable who are most certainly, ANC cadres.

This is completely unacceptable as state-owned entities (SOE) play a vital role in South Africa’s economy and are in fact owned by the South African public. Given our stagnant economic growth and looming sovereign credit downgrade, SOE’s form the nucleus around which much of the debate regarding state capture rages. 

Chairperson Letsatsi-Duba will be required to answer some very serious questions regarding procedural irregularities in dealing with both State Owned Entity Denel and, the BRRR report. 

In committee, it was unanimously agreed to that Denel, Treasury and the DPE were to present information regarding the now infamous "Denel-Asia" deal.  We have seen these entities separately and heard three very different versions of what should be the same story.  The only chance we have of getting any form of clarity for the people of South Africa regarding this deal is by getting them all in the same room and discussing the issue at length.  This meeting should have happened over a month ago. 

We will not simply stand by while the ANC lead government attempt yet another whitewash of a suspected act of State capture. We will not allow inept officials to negligently deal with reports that are of national importance without having executed requisite due diligence. 

Issued by Natasha Mazzone, DA Shadow Minister of Public Enterprises, 27 October 2016