The future of SAA-owned LCC, Mango, is still not clear and its business rescue practitioner (BRP), Sipho Sono, is now taking the Minister of Public Enterprises, Pravin Gordhan, to court alongside the Department of Public Enterprises, South African Airways, the Minister of Finance, the National Treasury, the International Air Services Council and the Air Services Licensing Council, asking the court to compel the minister to make a decision on the disposal of Mango by selling it to a still unnamed investor, as an outright sale.
The BRP said Mango had submitted the application for the approval of the minister in September 2022. “Basically, the DPE has been abusing the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA),” alleged Sono in an interview on eNCA last week.
He alleged that the minister was “buying time” and decided to go to court to compel the minister to take a decision for or against approval.
Sono pointed out that when the BRP was signed off by SAA in December 2021, it included the decision for Mango to be disposed of. Now that the process had come to its end, said Sono, there was additional information required by the DPE, the shareholder of SAA.
