The South African Cabinet has welcomed the buy-out of 15,1% of Telkom’s shares held by Thintana by the Public Investment Commissioners (PIC). In a statement after its regular meeting in Cape Town, Cabinet spokesperson Joel Netshitenzhe said that the meeting had noted the process that had been entered into “to ensure that Telkom shares previously held by Thintana revert to South Africans.
“In this regard the decision by the PIC to buy these shares and warehouse them pending further discussions with the Elephant Consortium has been welcomed. The understanding in this regard is that the Elephant Consortium was the successful bidder in private and commercial negotiations with [the United States/Malaysian consortium] Thintana,” said the statement.
The statement said that in approving the principle of this transaction, government “was guided by the following considerations: broad-based black economic empowerment, compliance with requirements of the Johannesburg Securities Exchange, the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa and the Competitions Commission as well as Telkom’s long-term ability to delivery value to society and its shareholders”.
It said judgement regarding the broad-based nature of the Elephant Consortium — which includes Andile Ngcaba, former communications director general, and Smuts Ngonyama, presidential adviser — would “need to be made when details of the composition of the consortium have been released.
“On the issue of a cooling-off period for senior state employees and office bearers, government is still processing the matter. And consideration in this regard will be taken of issues of conflict of interest, the expertise that such functionaries can provide to society and the cost to the state if such regulations were too prohibitive.” – I-Net Bridge