According to the Shadow Minister of Public Enterprises, the Democratic ALliance’s Natasha Mazzone, there is a constant veil of secrecy, hidden agenda’s, scandals and general distrust hanging over SOEs. The Minister of Public Enterprises, Lynne Brown, has indicated that the content flowing from the procurement processes for all of Eskom’s new building programmes will not be made public.
The Minister indicated that while “high level procurement process information … is available upon request,” “procurement content information however (e.g. tender submissions, contracts, pricing) … is confidential.”
The decision by the Minister severely compromises the transparency of the procurement process and leaves the door wide open to large-scale corruption and political interference. This does not bode well for the growing perception that South Africa’s state-owned enterprises have been politically captured by the ANC in a bid to plunder their coffers.
Mazzone says there is “a long history of irregularities in the awarding of Eskom tenders, including the alleged involvement of the ANC’s Chancellor House in helping Hitachi to secure Eskom contracts in the construction of Medupi, as well as Eskom’s irrational decision to award a R4 billion tender to Areva over preferred-bidder Westinghouse citing “strategic considerations” – a decision that was later overturned by the Supreme Court of Appeal”.
Denel, similarly, is now caught up in yet another Scandal, VR Lazer, Gupta associates and a full on fight between DPE and the treasury. The DA requested an open and honest meeting in the Portfolio of public enterprises. The opposition part also requested the attendance of the national treasury, DPE, the Denel board, the previous Denel board and most importantly, the Minister of Public Enterprises and the Minister of Finance.
But when the DA arrived for the meeting they were informed by the portfolio chairperson that parliament had not granted permission for the ex board members to attend, even though the rules of parliament allow for this. The DA says this is nothing else but another attempt at a cover-up, “another attempt to sweep issues under the carpet…”.
Zuma must not be allowed to centralise power to himself and influence decisions concerning public money at public institutions. This already has a track-record for self-enrichment and gross abuse of power.
