SAA bailout averted a catastrophe, says Cyril Ramaphosa
The deputy president tells Parliament the SAA bailout was not illegal, he was unconcerned about being removed from office, and that the Guptas should welcome the ongoing state-capture inquiry as chance to ‘clear their names’
Government had little choice but to bail out South African Airways (SAA) to avoid a catastrophe that would have affected the entire country, Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Thursday. Speaking in Parliament during a question and answer session, Ramaphosa said there was nothing illegal about the use of the National Revenue Fund to assist the embattled national carrier. According to a legal opinion drafted by Parliament’s senior legal adviser, Frank Jenkins, Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba’s use of emergency provisions in the Public Finance Management Act might have been unlawful because section 16 of the act was intended to be used in situations in which good financial planning and management could not prevent the need for exceptional or unusual expenditure. It appeared the expenditure was foreseeable and therefore not unusual, the legal opinion stated. SAA has been in the throes of a serious financial crisis in recent years which posed a serious risk to the fiscus because the...
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