PetroSA has not filed financial statements for five years, committee hears

PetroSA has not released financial statements for five years, and the portfolio committee on mineral and petroleum resources has decided it will not process the South African National Petroleum Company Bill until it knows what is on the entity’s books.

The committee meeting on 21 August 2026 was scheduled to receive the department’s responses to public submissions on the bill. It became something else. James Lorimer MP wrote to the chairperson the day before, and the chairperson read the letter into the record. Lorimer’s proposal was that processing of the bill be put on hold until PetroSA publishes full financial statements as the Public Finance Management Act requires, and until the entity answers detailed questions on those statements to the committee’s satisfaction.

His stated concern is that the committee is being asked to approve legislation that changes the status of several government entities, PetroSA among them, without knowing the full picture of the entity’s finances or the potential large liabilities to the state. He told the committee he would take some comfort from a legal opinion but would still be uneasy agreeing to the bill without the financials. What would satisfy him, he said, is for PetroSA to open its financials to the committee’s scrutiny.

The department’s own admission

Members who spoke supported the proposal, and one of them put a second problem on the record. The department’s own presentation, he said, admits that an outside party is still calculating these liabilities. On that account the department itself does not have the full figure either.

The same member said the state of readiness for the bill is nowhere near the stage it should be, and that the foundation is shaky. Another member supported the pause on the grounds that the bill carries financial implications for the country’s fiscus, including a possible bailout if the new company were to fail financially, and that an oversight body cannot decide without the full picture.

A further member said the committee should get the financials for all five years it has not received.

The presentation arrived at 10pm

Members also raised the timing of the department’s written presentation, which was sent to the committee at 10pm the night before the meeting. One member said this was uncalled for and that presentations should reach the committee a day or two in advance. The chairperson agreed and asked the department to account for it.

The director-general did not dispute the point. He told the committee the department received the public comments the previous Thursday, about 17 submissions, and that its normal practice is to take one to two months to work through comments properly, pulling out the issues and deciding how each should be incorporated. He said the department should probably have written to the committee to say a thorough job was not possible in the time given, which was about seven days including the weekend. Submitting at 10pm, he said, was not a sign of disrespect but an attempt to meet the committee’s deadline. He confirmed the team is still working through the submissions.

Two weeks, not two months

Members accepted that the deadline was unreasonable and said so plainly. One said it was humanly impossible to crunch 26 substantive presentations in a few days and that the department deserved credit for the work it did produce, while agreeing that the work was not what is required. Another said the committee should be fair and give the department time to revise.

The chairperson’s ruling was that the department goes back to do thorough work, and that the committee is not sending it packing. He said the pause also gives parliamentary legal time to advise on whether the committee can proceed without the financials without condoning a breach of its oversight duties, and to work through the tagging of the bill and the question of whether Nedlac was consulted before it reached Parliament. Legal advisers needed the time, he said, because they are still reading the submissions.

The director-general then gave the committee a figure to work with. He said the team is not asking for a month or two. With the work already done, the report on the comments should be finished in less than two weeks.

What happens next

The committee meets on Tuesday. If Makua confirms, it will deal with that engagement, and it will receive the director-general’s response to a letter from a member. The chairperson told the committee he has taken the committee’s difficulties to the chair of chairs, who undertook to respond by Monday, and that some of the issues Makua has raised may be resolved in that response.

The bill stays where it is until PetroSA’s five missing years of financial statements are in front of the committee.

Source: Parliament of South Africa (YouTube), Portfolio Committee on Mineral and Petroleum Resources, 21 August 2026, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FU63SEmj3lc