{"id":450865,"date":"2020-11-23T12:48:16","date_gmt":"2020-11-23T10:48:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=450865"},"modified":"2020-11-23T12:48:16","modified_gmt":"2020-11-23T10:48:16","slug":"mboweni-do-we-really-need-saa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/450865\/mboweni-do-we-really-need-saa\/","title":{"rendered":"Mboweni: Do we really need SAA?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>South African Finance minister Tito Mboweni again expressed his doubts about the need for a national airline, less than a month after agreeing to find the cash for a R10.5 billion ($685 million) bailout of the stricken carrier.<\/p>\n<p>In a series of late-night tweets, Mboweni asked his near one million followers whether the country requires state-owned South African Airways or whether a private company should be given the chance to come in and fill the gap left by its demise.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhere there is a market gap, a vacuum in a market, an airline will emerge to fill the gap! Will it!?\u201d the minister said.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Ok. Do we need a National Airline? Maybe that\u2019s the question? Is it?<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Tito Mboweni (@tito_mboweni) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/tito_mboweni\/status\/1330603498992496640?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">November 22, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Mboweni\u2019s opening gambit, \u201cOK. What should we do on SAA?\u201d came as a surprise as his own mid-term budget statement in October appeared to have\u00a0answered that question\u00a0following months of uncertainty.<\/p>\n<p>The R10.5 billion &#8211; to be drawn from other budgets including the police and education &#8211; would be used to finalise a business-rescue plan that called for cash for severance packages, ticket refunds, creditors and other needs.<\/p>\n<p>The National Treasury didn\u2019t immediately respond to a request for comment on whether this is now in jeopardy. The airline\u2019s administrators said they couldn\u2019t immediately comment.<\/p>\n<p>Mboweni has long been an opponent of using state funds to bail out SAA, which has been in bankruptcy protection for almost a year and hasn\u2019t flown a commercial flight since the start of South Africa\u2019s coronavirus lockdown in March.<\/p>\n<p>He has clashed with Pravin Gordhan, the public enterprises minister, who has insisted SAA can be restructured, revived and partly sold to a private bidder.<\/p>\n<p>Mboweni is a prolific user of Twitter, which he has used both for provocative political statements and pictures of his dinner.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/lifestyle\/450755\/british-airways-reopens-domestic-flights-in-south-africa\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">British Airways reopens domestic flights in South Africa<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>South African Finance minister Tito Mboweni again expressed his doubts about the need for a national airline less than a month after agreeing to find the cash for a R10.5 billion ($685 million) bailout of the stricken carrier.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":410527,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-450865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=450865"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450865\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":450875,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450865\/revisions\/450875"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/410527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=450865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=450865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=450865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}