Tensions reached boiling point in a Wednesday meeting of parliament’s select committee on economic development & trade after Post Office business rescue practitioners Anoosh Rooplal and Juanita Damons requested that parts of their presentation on their plan to save the ailing state-owned company be held in private, away from the media.

MPs across the political spectrum expressed frustration at Rooplal and Damons, who have in the past missed a number of parliamentary meetings where they were supposed to report back on their progress – only now to seek another postponement while requesting a closed-door meeting.

“We must remember that there is a reason these meetings are open to the public,” said Democratic Alliance MP Nicolaas Pienaar. “If any plan of Sapo’s (the South African Post Office) is to succeed, it will use public funds. Since we are using public funds – and we are talking about billions of rands here for this business rescue plan – the public needs to know what these funds are proposed to be spent on.”

Damons and Rooplal said their new strategy requires confidentiality because it discloses competitor-sensitive intellectual property, among other reasons.

Pienaar argued that if the IP related to the business rescue plan is “so groundbreaking”, the Post Office’s legal team would have applied for patents to protect it.

He added that the business rescue practitioners “must not have an over-inflated opinion of themselves”, suggesting that whatever solutions they come up with will not involve strategies not already in the public domain.

The ANC’s Mpho Modise, a member of the national council of provinces and chair of parliament’s select committee on agriculture, land reform & mineral resources, expressed his frustration at the continued postponements by the rescue practitioners.

‘Always a story’

“It cannot be that in all the entities and departments that we deal with, this is the one entity that time and again finds an excuse: they don’t come to our meetings, they don’t apologise and we never know why they not in our meetings. There is always a story…,” said Modise.

However, the business rescue practitioners have denied the allegations, saying they are willing to discuss their progress on the business rescue plan with anyone because that matter is in the public domain.

However, the strategy they have devised for the Post Office includes sensitive information, like pricing for new services, which should remain confidential, they said.

Read : Post Office gets emergency short-term bailout

Parliamentary legal expert Shamara Ally said that although the committee does have the discretion to conduct meetings in a closed forum, the fact that the business rescue practitioners had not furnished the committee with information prior to Wednesday’s session made it impossible to determine the legitimacy of their request.

“My concern is if we allow this to be a closed meeting, we shut out the media and we are not allowed to transcribe the information and make it public knowledge, even though this matter has been in the public domain for a long time,” said Ally.

Deputy communications minister Mondli Gungubele warned the committee to err on the side of caution and treat the information as confidential. However, committee chair Sonja Boshoff – a DA MP – said it was suspicious that the practitioners did not share their documents with parliament’s legal experts prior to the meeting so that the confidentiality request could be assessed.

Boshoff also highlighted a letter by Rooplal and Damons to the committee, dated 8 May, but only received by the secretariat on 9 June. “The sudden request makes me very sceptical … what else is being kept from us?” she asked.

Spokeswoman for the business rescue practitioners, Louise Brugman, told TechCentral that they have taken exception to suggestions that they were not being transparent with MPs, “playing funny games” or not providing information to the committee.

According to Brugman, the practitioners followed protocol by sending the aforementioned letter, along with a confidential strategy document and a business rescue plan presentation, to the communications department, which acknowledged receipt via e-mail on 8 May.

“We were told to follow protocol and we did. It was the department’s job to send the documents to the committee and that’s where the delay was,” said Brugman.

Patrick Mabilo, an ANC MP, said parliament has been trying to get the business rescue practitioners more than a year to “account”, and accused them of “shifting the goal posts from time to time”. He suggested that after seeking a legal opinion, parliament should consider subpoenaing Rooplal and Damons.

‘Must account’

“We must send a strong message to Sapo that their demeanour and conduct is unacceptable. It is outrageous and very disappointing. They are not doing us a favour – they must account because this is about taxpayer money,” said Mabilo.