Gigaba must stop passing the buck and sell SAA

Note to editors: Attached please find sound bites in English and isiZulu

Claims by Finance Minister, Malusi Gigaba, that the DA’s revelations that he has already signed a R10 billion bailout proposal for the drowning State airline, South African Airways (SAA), ‘has blown the negotiations’ is disingenuous at best and grossly misleading at worst.

SAA has been in trouble for over a decade and is now in very serious trouble due to the ANC government’s utter failure to turn it around.

Gigaba reportedly said that ‘the statement by Lees that a R10bn recapitalisation of SAA was on the cards… has blown the negotiations. SAA had lost its leverage.‘

He is horribly mistaken. The Standard Chartered Bank demanded payment from SAA in June this year and this no doubt caused other banks to demand payment.

If there were any leverage, it was blown when Standard and Chartered refused to roll over its R2.2 billion loan to SAA two months ago.

The bank’s lack of confidence in SAA and the South African government has nothing to do with the DA’s revelations in Parliament and everything to do with a complete lack of confidence, based on the very actions of the ANC government and their mismanagement of SAA’s finances.

The Minister of Finance would do well to face up to this fact and to finally do what is needed – put SAA into business rescue and to find private equity investors.

Statement issued by Alf Lees MP, DA Shadow Deputy Minister of Finance, 26 August 2017