Minister of Public Enterprises Pravin Gordhan has refused to resign saying he will finish his term of office.
Gordhan came under fire from the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) and the Democratic Alliance (DA) in Parliament where he was accused of collapsing State-Owned Entities.
Political parties accused him of also meddling in the affairs of SOEs.
They said Eskom, Transnet, and other SOEs were performing poorly because of his interference.
But Gordhan told Parliament, during question time with ministers in the economics cluster on Wednesday, that he would not resign.
He said Eskom will have a new CEO by the end of the year.
He said three names will be submitted for consideration for the position of CEO of the power utility.
On Transnet, he said that despite the decline in volumes transported, the board was implementing a turnaround plan.
When asked if he would resign because of the poor performance of SOEs, he said he would not.
“No. I am not going anywhere until the end of this term. Secondly, I accept responsibility. That is why we are changing boards when it’s appropriate. Boards are saying to the executives, ‘go if you can’t perform’ because the level of performance that we are seeing is not good for the country, not good for the entity, and not good for the individuals concerned. We act where it is necessary,” said Gordhan.
He also denied that he was meddling in the affairs of SOEs.
He said this was part of the political noise.
“Political meddling is this popular noise that is all over the show. I can guarantee you that I don’t have the time for meddling. I don’t have the spanner or anything else in my office to go around to fix a power station or anything like that,” said Gordhan.
He also said they were working on fixing Transnet after the decline in volumes.
He said the board of Transnet was now implementing the turnaround plan, which should start showing results soon.
“Secondly, as I have indicated earlier on, the freight rail division has seen a 6.7% decline in overall volumes from 226 million (tonnes) in 2017/18 to 149 million in 2022/23,” said Gordhan.
But the plan they are putting in place will be able to address this situation at Transnet.
siyabonga.mkhwanazi@inl.co,za
Politics