The Department of Public Enterprises (DPE) has accused some South African Airways (SAA) labour unions of working with opposition parties to deliberately undermine the airline’s business rescue process. It has called on them to finalise the process that began a year ago by agreeing to a final settlement of deferred salaries for employees.

SAA went into business rescue in December 2019 after bailouts to the tune of more than R30 billion failed to save the airline after more than a decade of financial mismanagement, a collapse in governance and corruption. As part of the business rescue process, Finance Minister Tito Mboweni allocated R10.5 billion for the grounded airline towards a severance package for some SAA staff and dealing with existing debt and other obligations.

But the Treasury had made cuts to other departments in order to raise the funds.