Speaking as parliamentary committee member at Public Enterprise Minister Lynne Brown's briefing to the portfolio committee explaining Brian Molefe's employment debacle under public scrutiny, former finance minister Pravin Gordhan threw shade at the South African government.
"The public is becoming increasingly aware that you are abusing state property, and state resources in the name of yourselves and not in the name of the state public. This is about capturing Eskom for the benefit of the few, that's the reality."
"Worse still, what South Africans are increasingly worried about is that we've reached a stage in managing governance in South Africa where there are a significant number of people in bureaucracy and elsewhere who are taking a view that says: 'I don't care if you know what I'm doing; I don't care how many reports the public protector or anyone else provides because I am protected.' The question is, by whom and at what cost and how will history record your role ultimately in this regard?".
"Eskom is a critical institution in the South African economy, as we learnt in the period 2010 and thereafter. When Eskom doesn't work it has a massive impact on economic growth, job creation, enterprises, and we haven't recovered from that, not withstanding the fancy footwork that we've been doing'
"This is not just one isolated incident of hiring, retiring, firing, and not retiring, or maternity leave or other wise. This is part of a pattern."
"Last week the South African Council of Churches provided its preliminary report which helps us to begin to connect the dots and understand what is actually happening."
"In much of the literature of my party and it's policy documents institutions like the state owned entities are a crucial part of the developmental state. But here we are parceling out state assets recourses, state procurement to a handful of beneficiaries. And if we think we're bluffing the public we've got a thing coming. And that's why what we do as a parliamentary committee can either give us credibility or we will also be accused of being 'co-conspirers'."
"If you want to connect the dots, connect all the dots and ask ourselves who did what where, in service of what cause, at the end of the day."
"Legal advisers can only do their job if they have all the documents in font of them. So we demand all the board's documentation, so that we can have the truthful representation of what happened. We all say we're about transparency so let's open the books so we can do what is necessary."
"I think we need to ask more directly to the board who instructed you to hire Mr Molefe, who made what phone call to whom , or which meeting took place where with whom, and as a result which made Molefe hired. I don't think we'll get a truthful answer, but the question needs to be asked nonetheless."