Parliament's Standing Committee on Finance said “as unfortunate as it is”, government had no choice but to bail out South African Airways.
Committee chairperson, Yunus Carrim, said in a weekend statement that not to have done so, would have been far worse, not only for SAA but for the country as a whole.
He said “in any case, Government had been considering a capital injection into the national carrier, but the need to repay the Standard Chartered Bank loan prompted this decision sooner.”
‘But the Finance Committee will want to know what exactly Treasury is going to require from the SAA Board in return to ensure that it functions far more effectively,” he said.
Carrim said the Parliamentary committee believed that Treasury was failing in its oversight role of SAA, and we are going to be far more effective in our oversight role over Treasury and the SAA”.
“We are to meet with them in early August when Parliament reconvenes and again in September. We are especially concerned that SAA has been losing R370 million a month at the moment”, said Carrim
“We reiterate our request that the Board be strengthened with people with the necessary aviation expertise and experience, that the position of the Board Chair be reviewed, and that the SAA CEO be appointed as soon as possible. Government should appoint the best person available for the post. The SAA management as a whole has to be considerable strengthened.”
“We also want the Board’s turnaround strategy to be finalised as soon as possible and brought to the Committee. While the majority in our Committee does not support the privatisation of SAA, we believe that there are a variety of other ways to ensure effective private sector participation in SAA, and we urge Treasury and SAA to finalse their proposals on this,” said Carrim.
Carrim said that the Finance Committee does not have the forensic and other capacities to investigate allegations and counter-allegations of corruption within SAA and we urge that these be referred to the police and that the criminal justice system acts swiftly on these matters.
