CAPE TOWN -
The Democratic Alliance says Malusi Gigaba's decision on R3 billion bailout for SAA may be unlawful, hence they are requesting a parliamentary legal opinion.
This follows an announcement by the National Treasury on Friday that it had taken R3 billion to pay Citibank, one of the lenders owed by SAA.
In June, R2.2 billion was taken to pay Standard Chartered Bank.
DA has written a letter to the Chairperson of the Standing Committee on Finance, Yunus Carrim, to request that a legal opinion on this be obtained from the Parliamentary legal advisers.
The part of the letter reads: "It is our contention that section 16 of the PFMA may not have been intended to be used under circumstances where the requirement for funds was foreseen and where the normal provisions for the appropriation of funds could be used in order to seek the approval of parliament in advance of the payment to SAA".
The opposition party feels that the parliamentary legal advisors need to get to the bottom of Gigaba's use of the Public Finance Management Act to bailout SAA.
It is understood that the National Treasury had to pay R1,8 billion due to Citibank on or before the 30th of September 2017-to avoid loan default and to use R1,2 billion as working capital.