Yunus Carrim says government had to bail out SAA
Carrim says Treasury will have to tell parliament what requirements it imposed on SAA in return for the bailout
Government had no choice but to bail South African Airways as failing to do so would have been far worse, not just for the airline but the country as a whole, chairman of Parliament’s standing committee on finance Yunus Carrim said Sunday. Treasury announced on Saturday that it had provided R2.3bn to SAA so it could repay its loan to Standard Chartered Bank which matured at the end of the month. Other SAA loans amounting to about R6.7bn also matured but the airline managed through negotiations to get these rolled over. Treasury noted in a statement that had SAA defaulted on the loan repayment to the bank, this would have triggered a call on its R19bn state guarantee, "leading to an outflow from the National Revenue Fund and possibly resulting in elevated perceptions of risk related to the rest of SAA’s guaranteed debt." Democratic Alliance deputy finance spokesman Alf Lees said the fact that Standard Chartered Bank demanded that its loan be repaid indicated that the bank "has no fai...
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