Gordhan called on to explain why SAA now being ‘thrown to the wolves’

Public Enterprise Minister Pravin Gordhan needs to explain the circumstances of South African Airways (SAA) as the airline’s business rescue practitioners (BRP) are threatening job losses to try to blackmail government, according to the United Democratic Movement (UDM).

The airline’s BRPs have proposed offering severance packages to about 5,000 employees after Gordhan refused to allocate an additional R10 billion to resuscitate SAA after the lockdown.

Government initially provided R5.5 billion to sustain the business rescue process. But this proposal was a move by the BRPs to blackmail government and taxpayers, UDM MP Nqabayomzi Kwankwa has said.

The practitioners had been granted three extensions to the deadline to produce their business rescue plan since the airline was placed under business rescue in December last year.

“Why are they dawdling and missing their deadlines?

“At the rate they are going, one wonders whether they plan to rescue the airline or whether they have a mandate from some quarters to destroy it.”

The business rescue practitioners were to table their rescue plan to the committee by March, but that did not happen due to the Covid-19 lockdown.

This meant no oversight was taking place. Thousands of workers should not suffer because of “a few greedy individuals”, Kwankwa said.

“From the UDM’s point of view, those who have looted SAA with impunity during state capture must be brought to book, because if the stolen monies were paid where they belonged, it could have been used as a resource to avoid retrenchments.

“For the UDM, the key issue is that business rescue must be dealt with comprehensively and not in the piecemeal fashion we have been witnessing.”

The party called on Gordhan to urgently convene a virtual meeting with the portfolio committee to explain matters surrounding the airline.

“It is critical that the minister of public enterprises tables the rescue plan before the public enterprises portfolio committee and that he explains the circumstances around SAA so that pertinent questions may be asked.

“Another matter the minister needs to explain and discuss with the committee is that SAA, like other state-owned enterprise, is top heavy,” said Kwankwa.

Meanwhile, trade union federation Cosatu said it was “deeply concerned” by the pending retrenchments.

“This is disastrous because it comes at a time when many families are already struggling because of the economic crisis following the outbreak of Covid-19.

“We simply cannot afford to condemn more workers to the unemployment line,” said Cosatu spokesman Sizwe Pamla in a statement yesterday.

“The federation is looking forward to meeting Gordhan, who has been invited to come and brief the alliance secretariat meeting tomorrow on both SAA and SA Express.

“We will use this meeting to engage the minister and government and urge them to explore alternatives to these planned devastating retrenchments by the business rescue practitioners.

“The outcomes of the meeting will then be communicated to workers and the public tomorrow,” said Pamla.

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