DA urges all South Africans to write to their bank urging them to stop funding SAA
20 October 2020
The Democratic Alliance (DA) is committed to mobilising all South Africans to stop the further use of public funds to bail out South African Airways (SAA). We believe it is morally wrong to prioritise SAA over other far more urgent public spending priorities. So many families have lost their jobs and livelihoods in recent months, and public services face massive cuts. To cut education, or healthcare, or social support at a time like this, to fund SAA, is indefensible.
And yet, we fully expect that the government will once again bail out SAA in next week’s mid-term budget.
Part of the reason SAA has been able to continue this long is thanks to the massive loans extended to SAA by South Africa’s major banks. All of these loans are guaranteed by the government, and therefore by the public, who eventually has to pay them back. This is just a bailout by stealth. The extension of these loans is not ethical business practice by the major banks. They know they will turn an easy profit on a guaranteed loan, to a company that would never ordinarily qualify. This too must stop.
As part of our effort to mobilise public pressure, we are today launching an online effort to get all South Africans to write to their bank to demand that they stop all further support for SAA. We have created a new webpage (https://www.da.org.za/end-saa-bailouts) for this purpose, with a pre-prepared letter that South Africans can use to email their bank’s CEO. We have also included the contact details of all bank CEO’s offices, for convenience.