Pravin Gordhan obfuscates on SAA/Takatso deal yet again

31 October 2023

In a reply to a DA parliamentary question, the Minister of Public Enterprises, Pravin Gordhan, fails to provide the requisite clarity on the process followed to get the Takatso Consortium appointed as the private partner for SAA.

Minister Gordhan makes a bland statement to the effect that proposals from other interested parties were received but fails to provide details of where and from whom these offers were received.

A complete lack of transparency by Pravin Gordhan on the selection of a private shareholder for SAA has been his preferred strategy ever since this process began.

The question on the R3 billion guarantee that Takatso is supposed to provide has not been adequately answered. In fact, it now appears that Takatso is now wavering on the point that it ever made such a guarantee.

This creates considerable doubt as to the ability of Takatso to come up with the money when they are eventually called upon to deliver it. It is quite incredible that a major deal involving billions of rand, such as this SAA/Takatso deal, has been entered into without guarantees of performance being provided by Takatso.

What is also astounding is that the deal appears to under renegotiation in terms of the latest valuation of SAA. It remains seriously doubtful that Takatso would be prepared to renegotiate the price that they will pay for SAA given that the 51% of the SAA shares was to be “sold” for a token amount of R51.

The DA warned from the first announcement of the Takatso deal that the gifting of 51% of SAA shares to Takatso for a mere R51 was outrageous and failed to take the real value of a debt free SAA into account. The DA will use every tool available to us to ensure that Takatso pays the market value for the shares that it currently holds.

It is the DA’s considered view that the whole SAA privatisation process should be restarted from scratch. This will ensure that fresh offers from interested parties are generated, with a view to claw back some of the tax payer funded bailouts that exceed R47 billion given to SAA over the years.

Issued by Alf Lees, DA Member of SCOPA, 31 October 2023