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Cape Town - A meeting between Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Public Enterprises and Denel got off to a rocky start when members of the Economic Freedom Fighters and the Democratic Alliance left in fury because National Treasury and the Department of Public Enterprises were not present as previously agreed.
“The DA will not be part of this cover-up,” the DA’s shadow minister of public enterprises said, while the EFF stated they would not take part in the “looting” of state-owned enterprises. Both parties’ MPs left shortly thereafter.
Committee chairperson Dipuo Letsatsi-Duba had earlier scheduled a joint meeting between both parliamentary committees from National Assembly and the National Council of Provinces. In addition, she requested the presence of Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan and Public Enterprises Minister Lynne Brown with delegates of their departments to be briefed on the establishment of Denel Asia and a controversial deal with Gupta-linked company VR Laser.
However, none of the ministers could attend the meeting due to other obligations.
The DA’s shadow minister on public enterprises Natasha Mazzone insisted that the meeting be rescheduled at a time when both National Treasury and public enterprises could be present, as Denel would have simply repeated a previous presentation they had given in May.
“All of us arrived here in good faith and expected all the relevant departments to be here,” Mazzone said, “so that we can clear up rumours and the scandal that now exist regarding Denel Asia and VR Laser deal.
"I feel Denel has had their time wasted if Treasury and the ministers are not here. We need to hear both sides of the story from all parties in one meeting.”
Cross-talking and shouting erupted between the ANC MPs and the EFF’s Nkagisang Mokgosi about whether the Denel briefing should go ahead.
After a lengthy deliberation, the chairperson ruled that the briefing should continue in the interest of those MPs who had not yet heard Denel’s presentation.
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