DA submits PAIA application to obtain access to the SAA/Takatso sale of agreement
8 March 2022
Today, the DA submitted a Protection of Access to Information Act (PAIA) application to the Minister of Public Enterprises, Pravin Gordhan, requesting that he provides the DA with a copy of the sale of agreement between SAA and its new business partner, Takatso consortium.
A week ago, following the announcement made by the Presidency that an agreement between the government and Takatso had apparently been finalised, we wrote to Gordhan asking that he tables the sale of agreement in Parliament.
Not only did Gordhan ignore our call, he has also deliberately continued to deny Parliament its constitutional right to exercise full oversight over the SAA/Takatso deal. The speculation that surrounds the terms and conditions of the deal stem from the fact that Parliament has been unable to exercise full oversight over the agreement before it could be finalised.
Gordhan announced the deal with great fanfare on 11 June 2021 but failed to provide any real substance of what this would entail. There are a host of unanswered questions that must be dealt with in order to ensure that the proposed deal is not just another form of SAA bailout disguised as a deal via the Public Investment Corporation (PIC) or other development finance institution (DFI), or yet another enrichment exercise for connected ANC cadres.