NUMSA demands that Public Enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan must stop sabotaging the sale of Mango airlines and finalize the deal!
15 December 2023
The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) welcomes the humiliating defeat suffered by Public Enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan, after the North Gauteng High court denied him leave to appeal on the finalization of the sale of Mango Airways. The Department of Public Enterprises (DPE) applied for leave to appeal against a previous judgement, which ordered the minister to make a decision regarding whether the DPE supports the sale of Mango.
The judgement which was handed down on the 6th of September, gave Gordhan 30 days to confirm whether the sale can go through or not. If the sale goes through, Mango will be wholly owned by a private equity partner, and will no longer be owned by SAA and the DPE will cease to be the shareholder. But instead of implementing the order, Gordhan wasted tax payer money launching an application for leave to appeal. His application was dismissed with costs.
NUMSA was involved in this matter because we have members at Mango. Even though they have been retrenched, we negotiated with the Business Rescue Practitioner that workers at Mango would get preferential re-employment, when the airline takes off.
This case is a victory for the union because it protects the interests of our members and protects the future of the airline. Gordhan does not care that workers, the airline and the preferred bidder are in an indefinite limbo because of his reckless decisions. He is acting irrationally and he has no logical explanation for his behaviour.