Mboweni hits back at Mabuza over comment
Finance minister focuses on fixing SOEs
FINANCE Minister Tito Mboweni has hit back at Deputy President David Mabuza in Parliament, saying Mabuza was taking him seriously on his views on the privatisation of state-owned entities (SOEs).
Mboweni was in the House yesterday to answer questions when he was asked by opposition MPs about Mabuza’s views, aired on Tuesday.
Mabuza laid into Mboweni earlier this week, saying he did not take him seriously because he made his comments on social media.
He said the minister of finance must use government platforms if he expects to be taken seriously.
However, Mboweni assured MPs that Mabuza was taking him seriously.
“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.
Mboweni said he agreed with Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan on the review of SOEs.
Gordhan had told the House they were looking at the question of strategic equity partners for SOEs on a caseby-case basis. This would strengthen the balance sheets of the SOEs.
They are currently sitting on huge bailouts from the government, and have in the past few years been given bailouts of more than R529billion.
Mboweni said part of what they would do in fixing the SOEs was get them to function at an optimum level.
Gordhan said they were attending to the problems at Eskom.
I can promise you that the deputy president takes (me) seriously
Tito Mboweni
Minister of Finance
The power utility has been facing serious liquidity challenges in the past few years and the government has committed to giving it a cash injection of R23bn a year.
Gordhan denied that all of the R419bn Eskom debt would be covered by the government.
“In terms of R419bn, there is a crucial assumption the member is making that all the money will come from the fiscus,” said Gordhan, in response to a question from Natasha Mazzone of the DA.
He said Mboweni had already said there would be R23bn allocated to Eskom each year. Mboweni had said this would amount to R230bn over the next decade.
Communications Minister Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams also said they were working with the National Treasury to get a bailout for the SABC.
Mboweni had said the SABC would require R8.6bn.
Ndabeni-Abrahams said they were putting together a team of experts to help the SABC put a turnaround strategy in place.
However, Ndabeni-Abrahams refused to be drawn on whether the SABC would require funding in future.
She said that could not be determined yet.