Finance minister must now answer to Parliament
FINANCE Minister Pravin Gordhan is expected to shed more light on the coal contracts between Eskom and a Guptaowned company, and his battles with state-owned entities.
He will appear in the National Assembly on Wednesday, where ministers in the economics cluster will answer questions on the state of the economy.
The finance minister has been under extreme pressure in recent weeks, battling some SOEs and the Hawks.
However, MPs have set out a series of questions for him and other ministers in the cluster.
Eskom was in Parliament last week, where it told the portfolio committee on public enterprises that its coal contracts with the Gupta-owned Tegeta was above board.
The Eskom board and its executives denied any corruption in the deal with the Guptas.
Eskom sent a 127-page document to the National Treasury on the coal contracts after Public Enterprises Minister Lynne Brown ordered the entity to do so. This followed a stand-off bet-ween Eskom and the Treasury for several months.
Gordhan is expected to address this in the Assembly.
The finance minister will also answer questions on his own fights with SOEs.
Other than Eskom, the minister has been battling arms maker Denel.
Last week Denel said the finance minister should come clean on his threats of legal action against its joint venture with another Gupta-linked firm.
Denel said it had been waiting on the Treasury for approval of the joint venture, but claimed the finance minister has been sitting on this matter since last year. He has not endorsed the deal, despite repeated attempts by Denel to get him to do so.
Gordhan has been calling on SOEs to trim their spending, and said in his Budget in February he would not be easily granting bailouts to SOEs.
Gordhan said for the past 15 years the government had approved loan guarantees of R457 billion, and warned that this was not sustainable.
He called on SOEs to improve their financial performance and maintain strong balance sheets.
Last week, two investment firms, Futuregrowth and Jyske Bank of Denmark, pulled the plug on SOEs.
Banks said they would no longer grant loans to Eskom, Sanral and other SOEs because of interference in the running of the entities and governance issues.
The political interference had made it difficult for them to work with the SOEs, and this has led to political uncertainty, the firms said.