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ANOTHER R5 BIL GOVT BAILOUT FOR SAA South African Airways runs short of money for fuel over festive season
INSIDE:
SA choreographer of ‘The Bodyguard’ | p6
Arthur Pita is the Londonbased South African-born choreographer of current West End musical ‘The Bodyguard’, running at the Adelphi theatre.
TB tests compulsory for SA migrants to UK | p2
Without a R5 million bailout from the government, SAA would have run out of fuel in December, leaving thousands of passengers stranded.
T
by STAFF REPORTER
HE South African government gave SAA another emergency shortterm loan of about R550 million over the festive period, the Sunday Times has reported. This was used to fund fuel costs in order to avert the grounding of the troubled state-owned airline, which would have left thousands of local and overseas passengers stranded during December. Finance minister Pravin Gordhan and public enterprises Minister
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Malusi Gigaba last week signed off a guarantee that allowed South African Airways to secure a R550m bank “facility” for fuel and other short term commitments. Gigaba’s spokesperson Mayihlome Tshwete said there was nothing unique about the loan and that airlines all over the world had experienced financial challenges. If the national carrier is unable to repay the loan over the next three months, it might need to dip into the R5-billion loan guarantee it requested from the Treasury
after it reported a R1.25bn loss for the year ending in March 2012, bringing total losses in the past decade to R14.7 billion. The government, as SAA’s only shareholder, has given the ailing airline R15 billion worth of financial support to the tune of over the last 10 years. “SAA is a company in financial distress and the shareholder is involved in its turnaround strategy,” said Public Enterprises spokesman Mayihlome Tshwete. This strategy will involve buying
more fuel-efficient planes. Half of the airline’s board members resigned in September after it emerged that the company’s request for a R6 billion recapitalisation would not be granted. A few weeks later CEO Siza Mzimela and two senior managers also resigned. Last year two other local airlines, Velvet Sky and 1time, closed due to rising fuel costs. TheSouthAfrican.com/ News
More hoops to jump: South Africans and Zimbabweans planning to come to the UK for more than six months now need to produce a chest x-ray to prove they don’t have tuberculosis.
South African fragrance launched in UK | p4 Cherish, a new fragrance created by South African businesswoman Jean Guthrie, was launched in Wimbledon by Doxa Deo Raynes Park church.
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