Scopa prepares to subpoena SA Express liquidators

Parliament’s Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) is preparing to subpoena the liquidators of SA Express if they fail to appear again next week. This is after they were absent at Tuesday’s meeting, where they were scheduled to brief the committee on the progress of the liquidation process.

Members felt that the liquidators were undermining the authority of Parliament by not informing the committee of their non-appearance ahead of the meeting. They had instead written to the Department of Public Enterprises saying they had requested a court extension of the process and would appear before the committee at a later date.

“We are going to secure a date in the committee’s programme, at the earliest convenience and within Parliament’s programme for the liquidators to appear before us. What we will do as a parallel process to that is to engage with Parliament legal services, the house chair responsible for committees and the Speaker’s office for the preparation of subpoena’s so that in the event that they do not appear, they will be subpoenaed,” says Scopa Chairperson Mkhuleko Hlengwa.

 Earlier on Tuesday, the High Court in Pretoria has ruled that the provisional liquidation of SA Express be postponed to 9 September. This follows a request by the South African Cabin Crew Association (Sacca) and the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) that there be such a postponement.

There might be a plan to rescue SA Express by injecting more cash to restart its operations.

The airline’s Business Rescue Practitioners also support the postponement.

Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan will on Tuesday brief the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) regarding the future of the airline.