The Democratic Alliance said on Monday that it wants “legal opinion regarding Parliament’s authority in law to grant an extension delaying the deadline for the tabling of the SAA annual financial statements (AFS)”.The party said it was making the request after Parliament‚ on Monday morning‚ “tabled Minister of Finance Pravin Gordhan’s letter requesting such an extension”.Pravin wrote: “Please note that the process of reviewing SAA’s application for a going concern guarantee is not yet finalised. Therefore‚ I humbly request that the Standing Committee on Finance (SCOF) extend the deadline for the tabling of SAA’s Annual Report to the 15th September 2016”.The DA said it has written to SCOF chair Yunus Carrim “to seek a legal opinion”‚ as contended “that there is no provision made in the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA) whereby Parliament is given the authority to extend the deadline”.“Parliament must give effect to this deadline and interrogate these long overdue financials‚” it said. “The long-overdue AFS have been outstanding since 15 September 2015‚ that is 10 months. 10 months that Parliament has not been able to exercise its oversight role‚ 10 months of no accountability at SAA and 10 months of open defiance of directives issued by the National Treasury.” The DA said the “stalemate between…Gordhan and SAA board chairperson Dudu Myeni is rapidly driving SAA to total collapse and simply can’t be allowed to happen to the national carrier”...