South African Airways creditors and unions approved a rescue plan that includes at least 26.7 billion rand ($1.6bn/Dh5.8bn) in state funding and thousands of job losses.
Voters representing about 86 per cent of those eligible supported the package, first proposed by administrators for the bankrupt carrier a month ago. The motion overcame the 75 per cent threshold after most labour groups agreed to sweetened severance packages last week, clearing the way for the workforce to be cut by almost 80 per cent to 1,000 people.
All eyes now turn to the National Treasury, which will need to find about 10 billion rand more than previously allocated for SAA at a time when state finances are severely stretched by the coronavirus pandemic. Finance minister Tito Mboweni has repeatedly voiced his reluctance to provide further bailouts to a carrier that hasn’t made a profit in almost a decade, putting him at odds with Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan.
According to SAA’s business-rescue plan published on June 16, the Treasury needs to provide a written commitment to provide the funding by Wednesday or the proposals will be deemed unimplementable. The administrators expect to receive a confirmatory letter, Siviwe Dongwana, one of the lead architects of the recovery plan, said at the creditors’ meeting on Tuesday.
“By giving the government the green light to massage its political ego through this multi-billion dollar nightmare, the creditors have spirited away funds that are desperately needed to cope with the coronavirus as well [as] to stimulate the economy,” Alf Lees, a lawmaker for the opposition Democratic Alliance, said in a statement.
Mr Gordhan’s department has said private investors and potential airline partners have expressed interest in taking part in the restructuring of the national carrier, which may help relieve the burden on the state. Speaking at the meeting, Kgathatso Tlhakudi, acting director-general of the department of public enterprises, said the government is looking for an adviser to work on a sales process.
SAA was placed in administration in December after surviving on bailouts and government debt guarantees for several years. Initial work on a recovery plan was torpedoed by the Covid-19 pandemic, which grounded all of the carrier’s commercial passenger planes from late March.
The government said earlier on Tuesday that Philip Saunders has been appointed acting chief executive, a promotion from chief commercial officer.
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Game Of Thrones Season Seven: A Bluffers Guide
Want to sound on message about the biggest show on television without actually watching it? Best not to get locked into the labyrinthine tales of revenge and royalty: as Isaac Hempstead Wright put it, all you really need to know from now on is that there’s going to be a huge fight between humans and the armies of undead White Walkers.
The season ended with a dragon captured by the Night King blowing apart the huge wall of ice that separates the human world from its less appealing counterpart. Not that some of the humans in Westeros have been particularly appealing, either.
Anyway, the White Walkers are now free to cause any kind of havoc they wish, and as Liam Cunningham told us: “Westeros may be zombie land after the Night King has finished.” If the various human factions don’t put aside their differences in season 8, we could be looking at The Walking Dead: The Medieval Years.