Madam Speaker
The vision for South Africa as caring society which cares for all its people is one which I believe is shared by all of us here today.
What baffles me is why the ANC dogmatically clings to the SAA vanity project which has syphoned off, and will continue to siphon off, billions of rand from poor South Africans to subsidise the rich.
Over the last six years SAA has lost a staggering R21.4 billion. This is enough money to:
- Increase the Child Grant to R450 per month;
- Build 612 schools;
- Fund three-year bursaries for 88 600 under-graduate students;
- Build 177 000 RDP houses.
And so, the list of missed opportunities goes on.
In the 2018 financial year R10 billion in taxpayer bailouts were paid to SAA and despite this before the end of the 2018 financial year SAA had already run out of cash and was begging banks to lend them a further R 5 billion in order to avoid business rescue or a possible liquidation.
Banks apparently refused to lend any more money to SAA even on the back of government guarantees.
In what seems to have been a desperate move we hear that a “commitment letter” from National Treasury was conjured up and was somehow used by SAA to persuade banks to provide R5 billion in bridging finance.
This appears to be a guarantee of the guarantees already given to SAA.
Was the “commitment letter” a scheme in order to avoid using section 16 of the PFMA to pay SAA unbudgeted funding for the third time in 10 months?
Was this “commitment letter” even lawful?
The contents of this “commitment letter” remain a mystery except that the SAA CEO informed the media that the letter included a National Treasury commitment to inject capital into SAA. There is no provision to provide capital for SAA included in the budget we debate here today so where is the funding for this capital injection to come from?
Minister Nene.
I have no doubt that fixing SAA is high on your priority list.
- Does this “commitment letter” exist and were you consulted in advance about it?
If it exists:
- What are the contents of this “commitment letter”?
- Did you sign the letter?
- Was the “commitment letter” agreed to by Cabinet?
Minister Nene you have a reputation of doing the right thing. We await urgent answers to these questions about this “commitment letter”.
South Africans are counting on you to stop the bailouts to SAA.
Gqongqoshe. Siya themba guthi ngeke u phinde uvume kuthi iSAA inikezwe enye imali ya abantu bethu.
(Minister. We trust that you will not give SAA any more of our people’s money.)