The legal opinion on the use of Section 16 of the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA) by Finance Minister, Malusi Gigaba, to bail out SAA to the tune of R3bn confirms Gigaba’s actions were not lawful, says DA Shadow Deputy Minister of Finance, Alf Lees.
The Auditor-General, Kimi Makwetu, must now make a finding as to whether the allocation is in compliance with section 16 of the PFMA or not, Lees says.
“As such, the DA will write to the Auditor-General to request that he confirms that the use of Section 16 was referred to him within 14 days as required by Section 16 (4)(a) of the PFMA and to request details of his finding on the legality or otherwise of the use of section 16 by Gigaba,” Lees said in a statement.
Earlier this month, the DA wrote to the Chair of the Standing Committee on Finance, Yunus Carrim, to request that a legal opinion on this be obtained from the Parliamentary legal advisors. The legal opinion states that the expenditure was foreseeable and, indeed, foreseen as clearly stated in the Cabinet memo dated the August 22, 2017.
Specifically, the opinion states that “it appears that the expenditure was foreseeable and as such, not unusual or atypical. It would not have been the first time such expenditure had to be affected.”
