DA leader Mmusi Maimane has called on Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba to place the ailing South African Airways under business rescue and sell it off as soon as possible. "SAA is insolvent, it is bankrupt and we hold a view that it should be sold off as soon as practically possible," he told journalists at a briefing in Johannesburg on Thursday. "Recovery plans have followed turnaround strategies, all yielding further losses. It is clear that national government is hell-bent on hanging onto the beleaguered airline — no matter the cost to the country and its people." SAA has only two days left to find the money to repay a Citibank loan, which is one of several totalling R6.8bn. Citibank was the second bank to refuse to extend its loan to the sinking company, in this case R1.8bn. In June, Standard Chartered Bank refused to roll over its loan of R2.2bn to SAA. The move required the Treasury to step in with an urgent bail-out to settle the debt because the unprofitable airline had run ou...
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