Gordhan fails to meet his own deadline to account on immoral SAA bailout

18 November 2020

The Democratic Alliance (DA) has written to the Chairperson of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (SCOPA) to request that he gives Pravin Gordhan, the Minister of Public Enterprises, 48 hours notice to submit detailed replies to all questions from Committee members - some of whose questions date back to May, six months ago.

It cannot be acceptable that Minister Gordhan, a member of the Executive, can treat Parliament with such disdain and simply ignore his own commitment made to SCOPA and not to provide the detailed information requested.

During the Committee meeting on Wednesday, 4 November 2020,  the Minister committed to provide answers to all questions regarding South African Airways (SAA) and SA Express within a week of the meeting.

The Democratic Alliance (DA) therefore immediately submitted written questions on these State-owned airlines to the SCOPA officials for onward submission to Minister Gordhan.

There is widespread condemnation of the ANC/Pravin Gordhan R10.5 billion taxpayer bailout for SAA which remains grounded and unlikely to even start flights before January 2021.

Gordhan admitted to Parliament on 11 November 2020, that it was likely that R10.5 billion would not be enough and that further funding of R3.5 billion for SAA would be required from taxpayers - making it a total of R14 billion without the R5 billion in losses over the next three years as contained in the business rescue plan. The R14 billion also excludes the R16.4 billion already budgeted for in the 2020/21 budget.

As billions in taxpayers money is being pumped into the bankrupt ANC vanity project, at the expense of housing projects, policing and education - the least Minister Gordhan can do is to respect Parliament’s oversight and respond to questions.

Issued byAlf Lees,DA Member of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts, 18 November 2020