STANDING COMMITTEE ON FINANCE
State legal opinion: SAA bail-out in auditor-general’s hands
Parliament’s standing committee on finance says the auditor-general should determine whether Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba’s use of emergency provisions in the Public Finance Management Act to bail out South African Airways (SAA) was irregular, after it obtained a legal opinion calling into question his actions. Gigaba used these provisions to raid the National Revenue Fund to bail out SAA in June and again in September. The opinion, drafted by Parliament’s senior legal adviser, Frank Jenkins, said his actions might have been unlawful because section 16 of the act was intended to be used in circumstances in which good financial planning and management could not avert the need for exceptional or unusual expenditure. It appeared the expenditure was foreseeable and therefore not unusual, said Jenkins. "Contrary to what is being claimed by the DA, the legal opinion does not conclude that the minister’s decision was definitely unlawful. It says it may be so, but it is for the office of ...
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