‘Mabuza takes me seriously’

FINANCE Minister Tito Mboweni insists Deputy President David Mabuza does take him seriously.

This was after Mabuza slammed Mboweni in Parliament on Tuesday, for using Twitter to air his views on government work on state-owned enterprises (SOEs).

Yesterday, Mboweni stressed to MPs, during questions to ministers in the economics cluster, that Mabuza was taking him seriously.

Alf Lees of the DA had said he (Lees) was taking the views of Mboweni seriously, unlike Mabuza.

Nazier Paulsen of the EFF also said he was taking Mboweni’s views seriously.

Mboweni said: “I can promise you that the deputy president takes the minister of finance seriously. Do not pick and choose what the deputy president said and use it wrongly.”

He said they were looking at various options to improve the balance sheets of SOEs. One of these things was the sale of non-core assets.

Mboweni has said in the past he would prefer SAA to be sold, because it was eating into the fiscus.