The Democratic Alliance (DA) received a very prompt reply from Pravin Gordhan, the Minister of Public Enterprises, to a letter we had submitted to him earlier on Thursday requesting details of the source of funding and the progress made to obtain the R10.4 billion in funding required to implement the South African Airways (SAA) business rescue plan that was approved by creditors over a month ago.
This reply within a few hours must surely rank as one of the most prompt replies ever made by a Cabinet Minister. Unfortunately, the Minister – instead of providing the details requested and to which both the public and I, as a Member of Parliament, are entitled to have – essentially refused to provide the details and insisted that I work through parliamentary processes.
I have therefore today submitted a written parliamentary question to Minister Gordhan in this regard and expect a full and comprehensive response.
Parliamentary processes, such as written questions, are frequently simply ignored by Ministers and we will see if indeed Minister Gordhan:
- Adheres to the rules of Parliament by providing a reply within the ten working days as stipulated in Rule 145(5)(a) of the Rules of the National Assembly; and
- Provides full details of the sources of funding for SAA as he states in his reply today that he will do.
It is an indictment on Minister Gordhan that questions relating to SAA that were submitted on 18 May 2020 through the Standing Committee on Public Accounts, are still unanswered for the past three months despite follow-ups with the Committee Chairperson.
We trust that the Minister will put his money where his mouth is and respond to the DA parliamentary question as soon as possible.
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