READER LETTER | Gordhan’s disregard for transparency exposed

Public enterprise minister Pravin Gordhan’s unethical attempts to privatise SA Airways (SAA) through the backdoor were eventually outed. Gordhan was hell-bent on selling SAA to cronies, thereby undermining a norm relating to the sale of equity in state-owned companies.

Cabinet may have sanctioned the termination of the Takatso Consortium deal, but the murmurs over its secrecy will follow Gordhan into retirement.

The deal exposed Gordhan’s duplicity and disregard for transparency and accountability obligations. It’s hard to disagree with pundits who have thrown cold water on the partnership as amateurish, ambitious and controversial. That’s because political manoeuvres were put before commercial interests.

An obvious red flag was the fact that SAA went into a business rescue process as it was unable to pay back the money borrowed on state guarantees. Another is that Gordhan has been cagey about telling public representatives how the partnership was concluded.

Clearly, President Cyril Ramaphosa isn’t as shocked as we are that there has never been a substantial deal in the past three years. Just like Ramaphosa’s glaring omission of SAA’s strategic deal in the recent state of the nation address. It dawned on Ramaphosa that Gordhan overlooked the unsound balance sheet of a preferred equity partner to deliver on the terms of the acquisition.

That’s in many ways an indicator of our beloved country being leaderless.

Rise on May 29 and save South Africa.

Morgan Phaahla, Ekurhuleni