Johannesburg - Deputy Minister of Finance Mcebisi Jonas yesterday confirmed in Parliament that Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene would decide next week on whether to give troubled state carrier SAA another R5 billion guarantee for the new narrow-body aircraft.
Opposition parties were up in arms over the R5bn request by the SAA board. They argued that this would be on top of the R6.5bn guarantee given in January to the national carrier. Right now SAA’s state guarantees stand at R14.4bn.
SAA wants to renegotiate its deal with Airbus.
It has been widely reported that the deal was not good for SAA as it would put it in a bad financial position.
Jonas said there was an original agreement with Airbus dating back to 2002, but that deal was too onerous for SAA.
Instead of purchasing 10 A320 aircraft, SAA wants to lease five A330 planes. The lease would be for 12 years and after that SAA would take full ownership of the aircraft.
However, Jonas assured the committee that there was nothing untoward about the deal.
“It is the minister who must approve the structure of the transaction. The minister said the transaction must not leave SAA in a worse financial situation, they must prove that in the application. The deadline for that application was November 16, which was two days ago, and we have received that application.”
Opposition parties also attacked SAA chairwoman Dudu Myeni and said she was exercising too much power.
However, the ANC came out in defence of Myeni saying she must not quit as demanded by the DA and EFF.
The appearance of the SAA board in Parliament came a day after Myeni appointed the new acting chief executive, Musa Zwane.
Zwane replaced former acting chief executive Thuli Mpshe, following the recent departure of former acting chief executive Nico Bezuidenhout. He is the national carrier’s seventh acting or permanent chief executive in less than four years and he is the head of the airline’s maintenance unit.
Zwane confirmed to the standing committee on finance that chief financial officer of SAA Wolf Meyer had resigned. During the meeting, committee chairman Yunus Carrim told SAA it must submit its audited financial statements by January 15.
In another point of contention, opposition parties said SAA wanted to complete its financial statements and avoid a qualified audit opinion by the auditor-general.
SAA has not tabled its annual report in Parliament by the end of September as required by the law.
Carrim added that this was not acceptable and the airline must do this by January, but before that the national carrier must submit a progress report by December 15.
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