Praveen Gordhan, Minister of Public Enterprises, said that the ongoing ideological struggle over funding for South African Airways. He denied any involvement in damaging the parastatals.Gordhan responded to a resolution by DA MP Giordin Hill Lewis on the “burden of managing nonprofit state-owned enterprises”, accusing the public-professional opposition of confusing the public.”It would be misleading to tell the public that the DEE really serves the interests of the people of South Africa, and when it comes to criticizing the SEEs, it does not really give the South African people insight.”
He said Gordhan had failed to see how the rent-state capture scandal was robbing the country of hundreds of crores of ransom money and how it could be hijacked, and that companies like Eskom, Transnet & SI were not willing to address the facts.
He spoke at the National Assembly. Former SIA chairperson Dudu Myeni told the zondo Commission. Board members complained that he acted recklessly when the airline was in power.Myeni, who was convicted by the North Guteng High Court in May, refused to answer questions on the grounds that he could be convicted.
Despite losing about 11 billion riyals in the last two years, Gordhan is adamant that the SAA be protected and restructured.R10.5bn’s long-term contribution to financing the airline’s business rescue plan, which was approved in July, met with patent reluctance in Finance Minister Tito Mboweni mid-budget policy statement last week.
Mboweni described the decision as “difficult” from an economic and political point of view and listed the departments that received the money to go to the SAA.He said Gordhan had further misled the public on the matter.Gordhan attributed his ideological insult to the DA, insisting that the provision for a sunken parastatal was tantamount to another “guarantee”.He said it was a simple recapitalization and, among other things, refunds to customers who paid for air tickets would not be used for staff retrenchment packages.
The DA said the working class did not care about losing jobs without pay if the SAA was liquidated, with DA MP Alf Lees testifying on Thursday that consumers needed a refund. “Go to hell.””We can open ourselves up – we can tell the people of South Africa very clearly that we come from very different backgrounds in terms of our worldviews and philosophies and not cover it up with all sorts of metaphors,” he said.
He alleged that Hill-Lewis, inspired by the desire to see the privatization of all state-owned enterprises, dismissed an interesting discussion about the role of SEEs in the economy.
“The DA is not an old-fashioned neo-liberal organization with a majority of market fundamentalists,” he said, adding that the party had removed members from its ranks who had deviated from the idea.Gordhan reiterated that the SAA would be restructured with the help of private investors, for the second day in a row, and serious offers were coming to the department in this regard.”Look at this place in the next few weeks and months when we make announcements in this regard.”