Cape Town - State-owned SA Airways (SAA) has spent R9.4 million on buying almost six million copies of Gupta-owned newspaper the New Age, despite the embattled airline remaining in financial crisis and relying directly on government funding to remain a going concern, it emerged on Sunday.
In a reply to a parliamentary question, Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene stated that since March 2011, SAA had bought 5 927 000 copies of The New Age that were supplied to domestic on-board flights, lounges, and airports, Democratic Alliance spokeswoman Natasha Mazzone said in a statement.
“The fact that the newspaper is both owned by the politically-connected Gupta family, and has an editorial stance which is unashamedly pro-Zuma, requires [Public Enterprises] Minister Lynne Brown to assure every taxpaying South African that the agreement is above reproach and free from political interference,” she said.
The DA would ask Brown to institute an independent inquiry into the decision-making for this spending.
“The probe must consider whether the president or his acolytes had any influence on the agreement between SAA and the New Age, whether such spending is financially viable given the current state of SAA, and why the New Age was chosen ahead of any other national newspaper.”
There was no doubting the fact that SAA was in a financial crisis. In January this year, SAA received a R6.5 billion guarantee from the National Treasury, bringing the total guarantees it had been given to R14.5 billion. Debt costs were expected to amount to R500 million for the 2014/15 financial year from R250 million in the previous period. SAA reported a R2.5 billion loss in 2013/14, up from R1.7 billion in the previous financial year, Mazzone said.
African News Agency