Gordhan missed opportunity to address De Ruyter claims: analyst

JOHANNESBURG - Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan missed a golden opportunity, according to political analyst Sanet Madonsela.

She was reacting to his appearance before SCOPA on corruption allegations by the former Eskom CEO.

READ: De Ruyter never alerted us to corruption allegations at Eskom

Madonsela says he went on a rant against Andre de Ruyter, instead of addressing the claims.

"I think that the minister was very defensive for some or other reason, it seemed that he was more going on a rant and he was actually, for a lack of a better wording, it seemed like character assassination, instead of actually dealing with the fact that South Africans want to know who these individuals are, in fact of wanting to address the issues, it seems that he wanted to personalise the issues," she said.

READ: Gordhan denies approving "intelligence gathering" at Eskom

"Because he would also go on talking about which CEO has tried to write chapter at night, whether he was recording people or not, not actually dealing with the matter at hand, so it does not matter whether or not de Ruyter was writing a book, it does not really matter whether de Ruyter responded to him or not.

"I think what's more important is actually investigating, finding out whether there is problems at Eskom, the extent to these problems and finding out who is implicated in terms of these problems."