Union heads to court to put SAA in business rescue
Trade union Solidarity says it has served court papers on South African Airways, the minister of Finance, and the minister of Public Enterprises to have the airline put into business rescue.
In a statement on Thursday (21 November), the union said that business rescue is essential for the sake of the security of its members at SAA, as well as for the sake of taxpayers in South Africa.
According to the Companies Act, public enterprises may be placed in business rescue and trade unions may bring such an application.
This will mean that the court can appoint a business rescue practitioner with comprehensive powers to rescue the airline, it said.
“We are profoundly aware of the crisis SAA finds itself in. SAA is heading for liquidation which will have huge consequences for employees, the South African economy and for taxpayers,” said Solidarity COO Dirk Hermann.
“In all, 11,000 workers will lose their jobs and a debt burden of billions of rands will have to be absorbed by the Treasury if there is no radical intervention.
“A business rescue application is the only remaining option to limit the damage.
“Recent events at SAA accelerated the crisis. SAA’s Day Zero is imminent. The current shareholder has lost control over finding a solution for SAA.”
Solidarity said it is taking this action as part of its campaign against the squandering of tax money, with SAA being one of the country’s major offenders in this regard.
“According to the 2017 financial statements, there was a loss of R5.56 billion. This means that R15 257 534 was being lost per day,” said Connie Mulder, head of the Solidarity Research Institute.
“Every hour, we are losing R635,730, and every minute R10,595,51. Since 2017, no new statements have been published and it can be assumed that the situation is only getting worse. Every day that goes by must therefore be regarded as a crisis.”
Read: SAA needs a government loan guarantee to avoid going under
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