SAA gets R5bn Treasury guarantee with Ts&Cs

THE BOSS: Dudu Myeni AFTER years of wrangling over SAA’s future, the National Treasury on Friday finally acceded to demands from the troubled national airline for a R5-billion state guarantee.

Due to mismanagement, stateowned enterprises have been singled out as one of the main risks to South Africa’s credit rating by the world’s three leading agencies, Moody’s, Fitch and S&P.

The country is on the cusp of a subinvestment or junk credit rating.

In recent weeks, private sector funders have voiced concern at the state of SOEs. Just last week, Old Mutual subsidiary Futuregrowth said it would not participate in any future loans to SOEs.

The national airline has been among the worst-performing SOEs, blighted by poor performance for more than a decade and corporate governance failures that in recent years centred on the leadership of chairwoman Dudu Myeni, a close ally of President Jacob Zuma.

The guarantee came with 11 conditions from the Treasury, among them that the new SAA board return the airline to financial sustainability, that strategy “be strengthened and alignment with other state-owned airlines ensured”.

The “primary focus is to return the airline to financial sustainability while also delivering on other important government objectives”, the Treasury said.

The Treasury, which took over the political mandate for troubled SOEs such as SAA at the end of 2014, said the airline should give consideration to a possible merger with another of its troubled companies, South African Express, and look at the potential introduction of a strategic equity partner.

Middle Eastern airline operators such as Etihad have been touted in the past as possible equity partners.

The Treasury said the airline, which has not released annual reports for the past two years, should secure funding to meet its liquidity requirements and implement aggressive costcutting in areas such as fuel, aircraft ownership, routes and labour.

Before he was fired as finance minister in December last year, Nhlanhla Nene and Myeni, who kept her position in last week’s board reshuffle, were locked in a dispute over acquisition of new aircraft.

At the time, commentators said reasons for Nene being ousted included disputes with the SAA chairwoman and the president.

Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan’s relations with Myeni have been as challenging.

Among the conditions for its guarantee, the Treasury specified that SAA had to report progress regularly to it and comply with a new communications protocol.

The Treasury also said the board should start a process to appoint a CEO and a chief financial officer in consultation with the finance minister. SAA has not had a permanent CEO for more than a year nor a CFO since December.