SAA loan agreements must be made public following losses of R734 million in the past two months

27 June 2017

The meeting of the Finance Committee today was a complete shambles which revealed that SAA losses for the past two months totalled R734 million. This follows losses of R4.8 billion in the 2016/17 financial year.

However even more shocking was the fact that:

- Neither SAA nor National Treasury had a plan in place to meet the 30th of June 2017 deadline to deal with R9.0 billion worth of maturing loans.

- SAA has been in discussions with the Public Investment Corporation (PIC) about funding the national airline.

We will not sit back and allow SAA to raid funds under management by the PIC.

The only logical solution to ensure the sustainability of SAA and its thousands of employees is to file for business rescue and to stabilise the airline before taking it to the market to find private equity investors.

It is also in the public interest that the terms and conditions relating to these maturing loans be made public.

That is why I will write to the Minister of Finance, Malusi Gigaba, to request that he disclose the full terms and conditions relating to renewed or new agreements with lenders to replace the maturing loans.

Issued by Alf Lees, DA Shadow Deputy Minister of Finance, 27 June 2017