The National Treasury on Wednesday declined to be drawn into a public spat with Denel after the State-owned defence conglomerate publicly defied and accused it of political “grandstanding” for trying to stop a joint venture company linked to the controversial Gupta family, Denel Asia.

This follows a strongly-worded statement by Denel in which it vowed to oppose the court action brought by National Treasury in a bid to stop the Denel Asia deal from going through.

Denel Asia is a joint venture between steel products firm VR Asia, which is reportedly partly owned by the Gupta family, and Denel. VR Asia is putting up R100-million to fund the business with Denel to share 51% of the profit.

Denel said it had served Treasury with a pre-notification of its intention to establish the joint venture but Treasury raised eyebrows only when the name of the Guptas was “mischievously” linked to Denel Asia, the company said.

In a response to the African News Agency (ANA), Treasury quoted the Minister of Public Enterprise, Lynne Brown, who on Tuesday said she would meet Treasury in a bid to talk through how best to resolve the issues which had become a “huge matter in the public space”.

“Whilst this was in respect of Eskom, National Treasury supports this as a matter of principle, particularly in the light of Minister [Pravin] Gordhan where he called upon all state entities to practice and respect the principles contained in the chapter of the Constitution on co-operative governance in the spirit of intergovernmental relations,” Treasury said in a statement.

“National Treasury will therefore not comment publicly on Denel’s statement.”

Instead, Treasury said it welcomed Brown’s call and was looking forward to resolving all matters inter-departmentally and report back accordingly in as far as they were matter of public interest.