Parliament Standing Committee on Public Accounts (SCOPA) received notice that South African Airways’ fight to repatriate a large sum of money from Zimbabwe, which was mostly from ticket sales, continues to drag on.
The money was estimated to be approximately R1 billion ($50 million), as reported by the Zimbabwean news publication Bulawayo 24 news.
“We’ve been in serious contact with the Zimbabwean government. R1.1 billion is not a small amount of money and it’s not been easy,” the SSA’s board chairperson, Derek Hanekom, stated.
As a result, Songezo Zibi, the chairperson of SCOPA, is now considering the option of attaching assets in South Africa in order to recover the trapped funds.
Since 2016, Zimbabwe has been battling a shortage of foreign currency, thus placing several other airlines in a similar situation.
Despite the SSA’s liquidity at the moment, the airline revealed that in order to grow its business in the future, it would require a financial infusion.
Lindsay Olitzski, the chief financial officer for SAA, added that a deal had been made for $9 million to stay in Zimbabwe for SAA’s local usage.
“The remaining $50 million they indicated a payment plan at an amount of $1 million per quarter. Now that is a very long payment plan, that to date, we have not yet received funds,” she stated.
South Africa’s minister of transportation, Barbara Creecy, has stated that she would consider taking the problem to a diplomatic level if she had a detailed report from the airline.
