Mango airline’s future remains uncertain as Public Enterprises withhold bailout funds

Defunct budget carrier Mango’s fate is still anybody’s guess.

It may be sold to an investor but delays caused by a bunfight between the business rescue practitioner and the department of public enterprises may force liquidation.

The intrigue surrounding state-owned aviation assets over the past few years leaves more questions than answers.

Puzzle pieces include Mango’s extended business rescue and the refusal of SA Airways chair John Lamola to allow the budget carrier to optimise bailout funds for working capital to restart in December.

The Mango sale process has been delayed due to part of this bailout funding being withheld by public enterprises.

Then, the legal sideshow which followed with business rescue practitioner Sipho Sono forcing Minister Pravin Gordhan’s purse open with legal action.

A bidder who did not get into later rounds of the investor process told The Citizen the process required the successful bidder to have R200 million in cash available.

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The unsuccessful bidder also said the only two assets noted were a spare engine aircraft, valued at between R50 and R100 million, as well as a technologically outdated custom booking system which would in any case have to be replaced.

Mango has also had a brain drain. Only a handful of staff, including senior management and prescribed officers, remain.

Then, there’s the sale of a 51% stake in SAA to the Takatso Consortium for R51 as announced this week.

Democratic Alliance’s Alf Lees said the Mango sideshow and its timing to the Takatso transaction concluding are “curiously fortuitous” and suggested the likely outcome would be for Mango to be wound down to make way for Lift.

ALSO READ: Business rescue plan suggests that Mango likely to be dumped

“Shame on Gordhan and his cadres for underestimating the intelligence of the nation; shame on them for trying to play a very flawed game with big toys that don’t belong to them.”

Taxpayers bailed out SAA over the past decade and a half for about R50 billion.

The Takatso transaction bundles SAA Group assets, SAA the airline, SAA Technical and Air Chefs. It excludes Mango.

Delays in palming off Mango may result in the entire sale process being compromised.

Sono said so two months ago when the R399 million remained unpaid to settle the balance of business rescue activities.

By the end of March, a desperate Sono said he would engage with SAA to release the funds, which had finally been paid over to Mango’s shareholder by public enterprises.

Mango would not answer any questions.

Spokesperson Benediction Zubane said: “We have to remain mute at this stage until further notice.”

He said the “gravitas of the matter” presently must be understood.

Lees called the Mango business rescue and sale process “flawed” and “a joke”.

He said that like with the SAA-Takatso deal, most aspects are shrouded in mystery on the part of public enterprises.

But he will continue to ask questions until someone relents and shares the truth.