SA tired of bailing out SAA: Gigaba

Parliament's Standing Committee on Finance has accused Treasury of "failing in its oversight role of SAA".

The accusation comes in response to Treasury's decision to give SAA a R2.2 billion bailout for the beleaguered airline to settle its debt with Standard Chartered Bank.

Gigaba told journalists at the launch of the 2017 tax season that Treasury has put strict conditions in place to ensure the turnaround strategy is implemented.

"We've not affected the fiscal framework in any particular way and so we will provide and extensive report to Parliament and to Cabinet during the Medium Term Budget Policy Statement as to that step we took and how we took it," says Gigaba.

Gigaba says one of the conditions is that SAA must finalise the appointment of a new competent CEO.

"SAA has, over the years, bled skills in a very serious way, so there is a lot of work that the new CEO will have to embark upon in order to rebuild the skills base of the airline," says Gigaba.

Gigaba says serious work needs to go into SAA and he wants if off his top list of priorities. 

"We just need to resolve the SAA dilemma. It has been going on far too long."

Gigaba says serious decisions need to be taken to ensure the airline can function on its own.

"South Africans are sick and tired of supporting SAA when the airline itself is not demonstrating any sense of responsibility."