Where is Lynne Brown?  

30 August 2016

Minister of Public Enterprises, Lynne Brown, has not uttered a single word nor made efforts to present a plan of action to the impending crises occurring at state-owned enterprises (SOE) SAA, Denel and Eskom.

As the Minister charged with protecting our nations SOEs this is highly problematic and makes her complicit in the rapid politicisation and erosion of our state entities at the hands of President Jacob Zuma, the Guptas and the cohort of acolytes presently doing their bidding. 

The DA therefore challenges Minister Brown to come out boldly denouncing the destruction currently taking place at our SOEs and to use what little Executive authority she has left to arrest this decline at our State’s agencies  before they completely collapse moving our economy ever closer to junk status. 

In so doing Minister Brown needs to urgently provide clarity on whether:

- Denel has presented tangible evidence that the joint venture with Gupta linked VR Laser was approved by her department;

- She is working with her counterpart at Treasury will compel the release of SAA’s long overdue financial statements; and

- Eskom’s Gupta-linked Tegeta contract was, to her knowledge, above board and in line with PFMA requirements.  

It is unspeakable that as the ultimate overseer of government administration at SOE’s Minister Brown has elected to remain completely silent while the nations entities entrusted to her crumble beneath her, leaving the scourge of Gupta state capture and gross financial mismanagement to run rampant. This makes her position as the Minister of Public Enterprises at over R2 million a year completely redundant.

Whilst Treasury does its best to mitigate the crisis at our SOEs; it simply cannot be that the Department of Public Enterprises remains missing in action.

Treasury has allegedly issued legal letters to Denel, demanding that it scrap the much maligned joint venture between Denel Asia and Gupta-linked VR Lazer Asia. According to reports, Treasury is ready to go to court to stop this deal. Where is Minister Brown’s political will to do what is necessary to save our economy? 

Minister Brown must follow on from Minister Gordhan’s decisive action in stopping the capture of our SOE’s. We expect an urgent response with regards the increasingly untenable situation at Eskom, SAA and Denel and in so doing show her nettle at this critical time. 

Issued by Natasha Mazzone,DA Shadow Minister of Public Enterprises, 30 August 2016