Pretoria – State-owned entity (SOE) SA Express has been officially liquidated.
The South Gauteng High Court granted the final liquidation order on Wednesday, which was handed down without opposition.
This comes after the airline was placed under provisional liquidation in April 2020, after being placed under a form of bankruptcy protection known as business rescue in February the same year.
Moneyweb reported that in 2021 airline employees made a bid to take over the airline through a worker-owned entity called Fly SAX, for the purchase price of R50 million.
The publication added that this was over R60m less than what provisional liquidators had valued the SOE at the time. However, the entity failed to get the necessary financial backing to seal the deal.
According to Fin24, in August this year the Air Services Licensing Council cancelled the licences of SAX on the grounds that it was not complying with the licensing provisions of the International Air Services Act. SAX has liabilities of more than R900m, including outstanding salary payments to employees.
The publication cited the Dynamic People’s Union of South Africa (Dypusa) saying that it was a sad day for aviation in the country.
“We believe the SA government could have intervened. Now workers have no hope of returning. The aftermath of looting and state capture gave rise to the demise of this regional airline,” the union’s general secretary, Mashudu Raphetha, was quoted as saying.
IOL