Parliament To Request Meeting With SAA’s Business Rescue Practitioners

Parliament will be inviting struggling South African Airways (SAA)’s business rescue practitioners to brief it on their plans to turn things around at the national carrier.

Public Enterprises portfolio committee chairperson Khaya Magaxa said the committee needed a well-thought-out strategy to oversee state-owned enterprises like SAA instead of an “ad hoc and crisis led approach”.

SAA has dominated headlines this week with calls for a R2 billion bailout and the cancellation of certain flights.

Magaxa said the committee would meet to discuss and develop an approach, which would include engagements with different parties within the aviation sector in order to address and tackle the challenges that SAA faces.

But Scopa chairperson Mkhuleko Hlengwa said the committee missed an opportunity to look at SAA’s finances because the airline failed to submit financial statements for two years and as a result of the business rescue.

Last year, the airline was placed under business rescue and government and creditors committed R4 billion to the process to keep the airline afloat.

EWN