More taxpayer bailouts for SAA

24 October 2018

Tito Mboweni, the Minister of Finance, tabled a Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement that included R 5 billion in bailouts for SAA.

Interestingly, the bailout for SAA is contained in a Special Appropriations Bill.

The Special Appropriation Bill gives no details of the conditions that the Minister of Finance must impose in terms of the Bill. I will submit a parliamentary question to Minister Mboweni in order to obtain details of these conditions.

This R 5 billion bailout is just the current year's portion of the R 21,7 billion that SAA requires in order to be able to continue trading at a loss or the next three years.

It is outrageous that vanity projects such as SAA are considered by the ANC to be more important than Child Support Grants that don’t even meet the minimum food requirements for children.

The R 5 billion to be paid to SAA could have been used to increase Child Support Grant by R 34 per month from R 410,00 to R 444,00 per month for a full year.

The refusal of the ANC to put SAA into business rescue as an interim step towards privatisation or liquidation is incomprehensible

Issued by Alf Lees, DA Shadow Deputy Minister of Finance, 24 October 2018