SAA sale to Takatso being renegotiated

CAPE TOWN - The government’s controversial sale of 51 per cent of South African Airways (SAA) to the Takatso Consortium concluded in 2021 for R51 is being renegotiated, Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan disclosed at a hastily convened media briefing in Cape Town on Wednesday.

That, and the commercial sensitivity of the information, is why several documents relating to the agreement must, according to Gordhan, be kept secret. The documents are:

The shortlist of interested parties

● from which Takatso was selected; The Harith General Partners’ expression

● of interest (Harith is the funding partner in Takatso); and The sale-of-shares agreement and ● addenda.

The parliamentary portfolio committee on public enterprises has been trying for an extended period to get details about the transaction, and it was only under threat of subpoena that Gordhan relented – provided that the committee meeting to discuss it be held behind closed doors and members sign non-disclosure agreements.

Allegations

The committee – which is investigating allegations by the former director-general of the Department of Public Enterprises that Gordhan manipulated the transaction to benefit people he favoured – requested guidance from Parliament’s legal advisors on whether the content warrants secrecy, and the advisors backed it on Wednesday.

In a letter to Committee Chair Khayalethu Elvis Magaxa on Wednesday morning, Gordhan insisted that the documents and their contents can neither be made public nor recorded or photographed.

“Please note that negotiations on this transaction are continuing to take cognisance of current market conditions and revised valuations,” Gordhan wrote.

“There is no certainty as to the outcome of this process. However, in the absence of an agreed, amended sale of shares agreement, the conditions of the original sales of shares agreement remain legally binding. The committee decided to proceed on the basis that the documents are to be treated confidentially.

This prompted the Democratic Alliance (DA) to withdraw from this and future in-camera discussions on the matter.

“The DA is disappointed by the decision taken by Parliament’s Legal Services (PLS), wherein they advised that parts of the SAA/Takatso deal should be shielded from public scrutiny,” the party said in a statement.