THICK END OF THE WEDGE
PETER BRUCE: Gigaba needs serious wings to save SAA
Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba makes his first medium-term budget policy statement in Parliament next week. He can’t increase our debt and he can’t not rescue South African Airways (SAA). Nor can he ignore Eskom’s shattered balance sheet. If he sells the state’s entire stake in Telkom he could, in theory, raise the R13bn SAA needs to stand on its own feet again. Fortunately, Gigaba last night finally made some headway. No doubt with President Zuma's support, he finally got rid of Dudu Myeni as SAA chair, replacing her with a respectable chairman and a much stronger board. It means that he can knock on creditors’ doors with a much firmer hand. The move clears the way, perhaps, for some sort of renegotiation of SAA’s debt. Gigaba needed all the help he could get. He has trapped himself. He should have stood up to Zuma in 2011 when he was given orders to sack the chairs and boards of a string of state-owned companies and replace them with people who turned out to be Gupta proxies.I don...
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