The Repeal of the SAA Bill will not be processed by Parliament before the end of the term in March as it is not considered as one of the priority bills.
This emerged on Wednesday when the public enterprises portfolio committee followed the changing of the agenda of the meeting.
The committee’s agenda initially included a briefing by Department of Public Enterprises on the SAA Repeal Bill, which seeks to address issues of shares as the public airline will be restructured with the introduction of a strategic equity partner and selling of 51% of shares to Takatso Consortium as one of the conditions of the sale.
However, this was changed in an agenda shared on Tuesday to indicate that the department would provide a briefing on issues emanating from the State of the Nation Address (Sona) and an update on developments in state-owned companies.
On Wednesday, committee chairperson Khaya Magaxa apologised to the MPs for the change of the agenda.
Magaxa blamed the change on the withdrawal of the bills from being processed by the committee before the 2024 national and provincial elections.
“At the beginning of this, two bills were referred to our portfolio committee. The National State Enterprises Bill was later withdrawn by the National Assembly table.
“We intended to deal with that bill today initially until late Friday. We were also advised that the SAA Repeal Bill is not on our priority bill. Further, as a committee we had an outstanding matter to investigate regarding the SAA transaction,” he said.
Magaxa said because of time, they would not be able to finish the SAA Repeal bill.
“Let’s target those we will be able to finish within this term of office. That one falls out,” he added.
According to Magaxa, the National Assembly informed him that if there were any changes they would revert back to him.
He also told the MPs that they had taken a decision to deal with consideration of the programme for the committee.
“I have asked the secretary to share correspondence between the chair and the minister on the SAA matter, which we have a responsibility to finalise as we were given by the office of the Speaker to investigate the allegation,” he said.
However, when the draft programme was presented, there was no reference to the correspondence Magaxa had earlier spoken about nor questions asked about the investigation into the sale of SAA shares.
Instead, after MPs went through the programme, they then adopted five sets of minutes from previous meetings before the meeting was abruptly closed.
MPs asked a few questions on the presentation made by acting director-general Jacky Molisane on matters emanating from Sona.
“We are not prepared to engage in a presentation received this morning,” said one MP.
The programme showed that there would be a follow-up on allegations regarding irregularities in the SAA transaction on March 6.
This would be followed by another to consider and adopt a petition by the former director-general on the allegations of irregularities on the SAA transaction.
Last December, the portfolio committee had resolved to report to National Assembly Speaker Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula the refusal by Minister Pravin Gordhan to hand over key documents in the sale of SAA shares.
Cape Times