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Finance Minister, Malusi Gigaba, is expected to brief the nation on how SAA will be funded when he tables his maiden Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement in Parliament on Wednesday.
The national carrier, which was moved from the portfolio of Public Enterprises to National Treasury in 2014, has been struggling to pay its lenders and service providers. At the end of September, National Treasury announced that government had approved a R3bn transfer to SAA to allow it to meet its debt obligations to Citibank. The funds, which were also to be used to assist the airline with its immediate working capital requirements, were from the National Revenue Fund.
Opposition parties have since questioned whether this bailout, which was the second transfer of funds since July, was illegal.
Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa has said an Inter-Ministerial Committee on state-owned enterprises was looking into strengthening SOEs that need support, including SAA, in order to return them to profitability. Answering questions in the National Council of Provinces in September, Ramaphosa said challenges faced by the airline were “quite complex”.
Minister Gigaba has also indicated that the process of assessing the viability of a merger between SAA and SA Express is complete, pending a government review.
Source: tourismupdate.co.za