The office of Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan has come down hard on Xiluva leader Bongani Baloyi after he called for the minister to be fired.
Responding to Baloyi’s accusations, Gordhan’s spokesperson Elias Mnyandu lashed out and called Baloyi a failed politician and an opportunist who is trying hard to be noticed.
“This is political opportunism of the worst kind,” Mnyandu said.
“It is not surprising that a failed politician like Mr Baloyi has the nerve to mindlessly attack our efforts to stabilise state-owned enterprises (SOEs).
“Now that we are on the verge of releasing a turnaround plan that will help Transnet recover rail volumes, boost efficiencies, and support our economy, Mr Baloyi decides to seek relevancy through baseless claims.”
In a statement on Thursday, Baloyi said Gordhan should be axed over the departure of several top executives at Eskom and Transnet.
SOEs saw a spate of resignations of executives and board members, who left in droves in a short space of time in October.
Baloyi said Gordhan should take responsibility for the departures of Transnet leadership, including the resignation of Eskom board chairperson, Mpho Makwana, which came amid corruption allegations and concerns about the management of the companies.
“Pravin’s assertion that the actions taken are aimed at addressing misconduct and enhancing governance is nonsense,” Baloyi said.
Transnet’s underperformance unacceptable
Mnyandu said Transnet’s underperformance is unacceptable, noting that this is the reason the board took decisive action to reverse the slide that has seen rail volumes languishing under 200 million tons since 2020.
Said Mnyandu: “It is minister Gordhan’s job as the government’s shareholder representative to demand accountability and proper stewardship of our SOEs as set out in the shareholder compacts.
“Political adventurists like Mr Baloyi have nothing to offer except noise.”
He added that Eskom’s restructuring, which involves the creation of generation, transmission and distribution subsidiaries continues to make significant progress.
He said this can be seen “with the recent approval of remaining licences for the National Transmission Company of South Africa [NTCSA] by the National Energy Regulator of South Africa and the imminent announcement of the NTCSA board”.
“Our work is very important for the people of South Africa, and thus minister Gordhan has no intention to have political start-ups like Baloyi go unchallenged.
“It’s telling that he has skipped from one party to another three times. Shocking political opportunist,” Mnyandu said.
He accused Baloyi of jumping on the bandwagon of electioneering.
“It is election campaign time. Minister Gordhan will not entertain shallow start-up political parties who want to gain votes at his expense.
“They must present their proposals to the electorate.”
