UDM leader Bantu Holomisa has written to the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) to probe government’s 51% sale of South African Airways to Takatso Consortium.
This comes as Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan on June 11 announced - what seemed like a done deal - that Takatso would inject more than R3 billion into the deal. SAA had been in rescue since December 2019, and business rescue practitioners ended the process about two months ago.
The department announced that a due diligence process was under way. Less than two weeks later President Cyril Ramaphosa announced that the deal between SAA and Takatso was not finalised. The president also referred to the consortium as the “preferred partner”.
A few days after Gordhan's statement, Holomisa made public that he sought legal advice as more detail on the sale had to be provided. He also said he intends to challenge Gordhan’s decision on selecting the consortium as a preferred partner.
In his letter to Scopa chair Mkhuleko Hlengwa, he wrote: “From the UDM’s perspective, looking at Minister Gordhan’s seemingly premature announcement and President Ramaphosa’s tactical withdrawal, it seems as if the right hand does not know what the left is doing. We cannot help but wonder which version is the truth?”
He added: “The SAA-dilemma has been under discussion with the close involvement of Parliament and its committees since the start of its troubles, and here comes, what most consider to be, a surprise announcement of a decision, made by whom exactly we do not know, to sell government’s majority stake in SAA. Perhaps Scopa could request the Department of Public Enterprises (DPE) and/or Minister Gordhan for a copy of cabinet’s approval of this transaction.”