Paranoid Gordhan feels the heat

Ordinary citizens, who are effectively the real shareholders in South African Airways (SAA), are still in the dark about the deals being concocted by Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan to sell off the airline.

Gordhan this week tried to fob off an antagonistic portfolio committee on public enterprises, which included ANC comrades, by first demanding signatures on nondisclosure agreement documents (NDA) before he would reveal anything about the Takatso Aviation-SAA deal.

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When it was refused, with just over an hour left of the meeting, he buried them in mountains of paperwork.

It was an impossible ask, since committee members were not allowed to remove the documents from the room for further study because of its apparent commercial sensitivity.

“There was nothing in the pack that seemed like it deserved a nondisclosure agreement,” a committee member told The Citizen.

‘Nothing to justify secrecy’

“While we only had time to skim the documents, nothing seemed to justify the secrecy with which this entire deal has been dragging along for two years.

“It’s not Gordhan’s money, not the ANC’s; it’s the taxpayers’ money, the very people who voted us into office. They deserve to know.”

The minister was confronted head-on about the veil of secrecy around the deal.

Fellow ANC members were said to be among the most critical during the meeting, which was closed to the media and public.

During the meeting, Gordhan was asked to step out and was momentarily excluded from a committee discussion.

On his return, his paranoia allegedly overcame him,and he blasted the committee, saying he was aware that members were recording the meeting with the intention to leak its contents.

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Gordhan questioned why he should reveal information to the committee because – and he allegedly turned to his party peers – “so many of you were there when it was negotiated”.

The packs distributed included voluminous and detailed valuations by Rand Merchant Bank, the shareholders’ agreement and the original list of bidders keen on a stake in SAA.

“The heap of documents was then referred to the parliamentary legal adviser for an opinion, as we had run out of time,” said another committee member.

What was evident, though, said a member, was that the Takatso Consortium did not feature on the list of bidders. Only Harith – a majority shareholder in Takatso – made an appearance, alongside other company names.

“I am not sure about the ethics or the legality of that, it remains to be explored. It also makes me wonder what else could have slipped through the cracks while we were all in the dark.”

Gordhan’s political career may be on its final approach, but he’s already been isolated in his own party while opponents’ calls for his sacking remain relentless.

Calls to fire Gordhan

The Democratic Alliance (DA) called for President Cyril Ramaphosa to “retire him or fire him” months ago and United Democratic Movement (UDM) leader Bantu Holomisa reprised the demand yesterday.

“After this SAA debacle and the most recent move to ask the portfolio committee on public enterprises to sign NDAs, the UDM calls on President Cyril Ramaphosa to immediately remove Pravin Gordhan as minister of public enterprises,” Holomisa posted on social media platform X.

At the meeting, Gordhan had to be threatened with subpoenas and the speaker had to be called to re-emphasise that legal action would have to be taken if he continued to insist on not sharing.

The committee member said: “Gordhan looked isolated, and the split in the ANC was never as clear in a parliamentary committee meeting…

“There seems to be a massive divide between [former president and current uMkhonto weSizwe party member Jacob] Zuma loyalists and followers of Ramaphosa, and Gordhan seemed like the wrong tool for the job at hand.”

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The DA’s Alf Lees said: “Even the ANC in parliament now seems to have finally lost all confidence in his handling of SAA.

“He has been a has-been even from his time as finance minister in 2009-10 when, instead of cutting expenditure, he started pushing sovereign debt levels up to fund ANC excesses, corruption and state capture.

“Gordhan’s fixation with keeping the SAA-Takatso deal going in complete secrecy seems to have been the last straw for his ANC comrades, who are now forced to make a pretence of getting the Takatso agreement out of him.

“There seems to be no doubt that Gordhan’s secrecy with the Takatso deal is because it is a bad deal and very likely in violation of the law.”

Gordhan is said to have also tried to leverage his successes as former finance minister.

“He said, just like he had everything in hand while he was in charge of the fiscus, so, too, does he have everything in hand now.”

“Gordhan is a spent force”, we saw that on Wednesday, the source said. And meanwhile, SA is none the wiser about the SAA deal.