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By Emsie Ferreira 
8h ago
Cape Town – Public Enterprise Minister Pravin Gordhan said in a letter to Parliament’s public accounts oversight committee that the government would secure funds for the corporate bailout of the national carrier South African Airways (SAA) before the end of the month.
The commitment was made in a letter addressed to the president of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (SCOPA), Mkhuleko Hlengwa, in which the minister withdrew from a meeting scheduled for Tuesday.
“Accordingly, I have engaged with the SAA business rescue professionals and we kindly request that the meeting be postponed to another date, preferably the week beginning October 26,” he wrote.
“This will allow SAA to focus first on securing the necessary funding and implementation of the adopted business rescue plan and ultimately reporting back to the committee.”
Two weeks ago, business rescue professionals Les Matuson and Siviwe Dongwana announced that the airline would suspend all operations immediately as talks continued with the government about funding R10.4 billion (US $ 630 million) for immediate operations. short and medium term of the airline.
The rescue practitioners made it clear in a meeting with affected parties that unless funding was received, settlement or a structured settlement were the only options.
Gordhan has insisted that the deficit airline must be salvaged and restructured, contrary to Finance Minister Tito Mboweni, who has been outspoken about his reluctance to invest more public money in the deficit airline.
The Ministry of Public Enterprises has said in recent months that it received unsolicited approaches from potential private partners for SAA.
But without anything materializing, there is no other option on the table than more government funding.
It is expected to be announced in Mboweni’s medium-term budget policy statement, which is usually delivered in the third week of October.
It is reliably understood that funding for SAA would not be marked as a bailout in budgetary terms, but rather as an investment in aviation.
An economic recovery plan that President Cyril Ramaphosa will present in Parliament on Thursday states that there are no funds available in the financial year for distressed state-owned companies, according to a draft presented to the cabinet last week.
African News Agency (ANA)
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