The Democratic Alliance (DA) rejects the decision by Nedbank and four other South African banks to make R3.6 billion bridging finance available to South African Airways (SAA) whilst the airline await payment of the R10.5 billion taxpayer bailout proposed by the Minister of Finance. Tito Mboweni, in his Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement last week. This was revealed in a Sunday Times report over the weekend.
Nedbank and the other unnamed banks will be participating in what many South Africans see as an unethical and immoral use of very limited taxpayer funds and must expect reputational damage to come their way. It would be dishonest for these banks to fund massive severance packages for a bankrupt SAA and not for other bankrupt businesses such as SA Express and private businesses.
Unlike SAA and SA Express which have been looted and mismanaged, private businesses face the economic consequences of the ANC-imposed Covid-19 lockdown that has devastated the South African economy and created unemployment levels never before seen in the country.
Parliament has yet to approve the outrageous R10.5 billion taxpayer bailout to SAA and the DA will continue to oppose such a bailout by Parliament. We also urge the public to write to Parliament’s Standing Committee on Finance to give their public input into Minister Mboweni’s budget speech and to raise their objection to this bailout. Parliament must take the views of the public into account in passing this budget.
We also urge opposition parties and ANC MPs in the National Assembly to act in the best interests of desperately unemployed and starving South Africans and call on them to reject the R10.5 billion SAA bailout.
In the end, if the R10.5 billion SAA taxpayer bailout is rejected by all clear thinking MPs, we trust that there will have been no further government guarantees issued and that the South African banks who foolishly loan R3.6 billion to SAA understand that it will be these banks clients and shareholders who will carry the can.
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