It remains to be seen whether Treasury will approve an equity injection for SAA.
The state owned airline was not mentioned during finance minister Nhlanhla Nene’s medium-term budget statement on Wednesday, although Nene said funding to state-owned companies would only be allocated “on condition that a sound business plan is in place.”
“Capital injections for state owned companies will be allocated without impacting on the budget deficit for the next two years,” said Nhlanhla.
Public enterprises minister Lynne Brown has convened a general meeting on Thursday, October 23, to discuss the removal of non-executive members of the board.
Asked whether a possible bailout would be discussed, Colin Cruywagen, spokesperson for the Minister, told eTNW he would not give details of the agenda, other than that it would include the removal of some board members, as previously stated by the department. “It is a bit premature to even speculate,” said Colin, adding that the department would issue a statement after the meeting.
After the Minister called for a meeting, four non-executive members of the SAA board resigned. The Minister said in a statement: “It is a pity that some board members have chosen this path. The meeting is intended to give them the opportunity to respond on the record. I am limiting my comments on the matter of board membership to that at the moment in the interest of fairness to those who do choose to attend the meeting.”
Earlier this month, Brown has launched an initiative to recruit board members for SAA and SAX as well as other state-owned companies, calling on members of the public to nominate candidates. The deadline for nomination was October 17.
