The Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) in Bloemfontein has dismissed an application by SA Airlink in which it sought to have more than R430 million held by South African Airways (SAA) released to it. Airlink argued at the SCA that it was acting as an agent for SAA and that the funds did not belong to the national carrier.
When SAA was placed under business rescue it had not yet paid over to Airlink the funds received for ticket sales for the preceding month.
SAA business rescue practitioners contended that the funds could not be paid over to Airlink as they constituted a debt that preceded the commencement of business rescue.
The SCA dismissed the matter, stating that the moratorium on legal proceedings against companies in business rescue applied on all legal proceedings, except in instances set out in the Companies Act.
The Appeal Court ruled that Airlink was precluded from instituting legal proceedings against SAA without either consent of the business rescue practitioner or leave of the court.
Treasury outlines how funds will be allocated to SAA
Earlier in November, National Treasury outlined how R7 billion will be removed from allocations like local government and municipal infrastructure grants among others as the President Cyril Ramaphosa administration seeks to reduce national debt.
These include a reduction of R336 million from the school infrastructure backlog grants, R240 million from the National Health Insurance fund and R273 million from the provincial emergency housing fund among others.
Senior economist for Intergovernmental Policy and Planning at National Treasury Olorato Tlhoaele was briefing a joint meeting of the Standing and Select Committees on Appropriations.
“There are reductions that have been made to national programs and as part of those reductions, provincial conditional grants were also identified as areas where reductions should take place. The purpose of making these reductions was to cater for the rescue plan for South African Airways. So, in total with regard to provincial conditional grants there is a reduction of R1.3 billion,” says Tlhoaele.
