By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
Parliament has proposed that the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) be tasked with investigating alleged irregularities in the collapsed South African Airways (SAA)-Takatso deal.
The main reason given by the National Assembly committee for this is that the department has not been able to successfully dispute and disprove all the allegations that the former Director-General (DG) Kgathatso Tlhakudi had made about the deal.
Tlhakudi laid a complaint against Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan in Parliament last year, saying that the sale of SAA “was orchestrated in an irregular manner by the minister to benefit a few privileged individuals who were favoured by the minister”.
Allegations laid by the former DG include that Takatso was not initially on the list of companies that submitted bids, the assets of SAA were undervalued, certain individuals interfered and handpicked Takatso as the preferred bidder, and some signatures in the sale documents, including his own, were forged.
The Public Enterprises Committee said that it does not have the capacity to investigate these allegations, which largely have not been disproven.
These are among the reasons that the committee feels very strongly that we need an SIU type of investigation to find out whether there is any truth in that allegation raised by the former DG,” said Committee chairperson, Khaya Magaxa.
When asked whether Gordhan conducted himself in an irregular manner during the negotiations, Magaxa said that there were “questionable processes”; however, no current evidence can be placed at the feet of the minister.
Magaxa also raised questions around the ex-DG’s signature as part of the reason to refer the SAA-Takatso deal to the SIU.
“This presents a serious dispute of facts that can only be resolved by an entity with forensic (capabilities),” he told his committee.
“In view of the above, the committee cannot say that the SAA-Takatso transaction was above board and will, in this regard, be recommending that law enforcement agencies do their work in unravelling the truth about this transaction, particularly the alleged forgery of the former DG’s signature in the SEP appointment process.”
Lawmakers again raised how they could only browse through but not properly read the transaction documents when they were finally made available.
Annoyance was also voiced over last Wednesday’s announcement that Cabinet had agreed that the SAA-Takatso deal was terminated.
“The minister to date has not deemed it fit to come to brief the committee… the only thing that happened is the minister called just 10 minutes before he addressed the media to say Cabinet had approved government withdrawing from the deal,” said Magaxa. No one disagreed that this was a snub to the parliamentary oversight committee.
The UDM’s Nqabayomzi Kwankwa agreed, adding that the circumstances of RMB’s departure must also be included in an SIU probe.
“It cannot be that the committee is informed casually via phone call that the deal is cancelled, as if we are not important. But members of the executive come here (to the committee) to beg for money or bailouts – then we are important.”
Again, despite heightened party political rivalry in the run-up to the 2024 elections, no one disagreed.
But MPs are running out of time as the National Assembly rises soon for elections. When lawmakers return, a public enterprises committee may no longer exist.
Meanwhile the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) has added its voice to the calls for an investigation into Gordhan and the aborted SAA/Takatso Consortium deal.
The union called for the Special Investigating Unit (AFU) to launch a probe, after the long-running planned take-over of the ailing state-owned airline abruptly came to an end earlier this week.