World South Africa: the government announces a rescue plan for South African Airways

© AFP / Guillem Sartorio A plane of the company South African Airways, March 14, 2020 in Polokwane, South Africa.

The South African government will inject 10 billion rand, or nearly 640 million dollars, into the state-owned South African Airways (SAA) to save it from disaster. On the other hand, this rescue plan will leave four-fifths of the personnel on the floor and the fleet will be drastically reduced.

President Cyril Ramaphosa made it an imperative, a matter of national pride. The South African flag, an 86-year-old company, had to be saved at all costs.

We now know this price: 640 million dollars, a staff reduced to the maximum, to 1,000 employees against 5,000 previously. And a fleet that will grow from 44 to six aircraft. South African Airways (SAA), in bankruptcy proceedings for almost a year , shut down for several weeks, will survive but will not soon regain its former glory.

I Experienced Systemic Racism at One of America’s Most Prestigious Magazines

As a magazine, Town & Country has been in circulation longer than the institution of slavery has been abolished in America. In the past few years, the 174-year-old Hearst publication has made it a point to assert itself as an important voice in our country’s national reckoning with race, equity, and social justice. The “advancing conversations” featured at the affluent heritage brand’s annual event, the Town & Country Philanthropy Summit, for example, have tackled issues from mass incarceration to police violence, and have featured a who’s who of Black powerhouses from Valerie Jarrett, Darren Walker, John Legend, and Ava DuVernay, to Michael B. Jordan, Robert F.

South Africa ’s government will place the national airline under a local form of bankruptcy It also plans publish a new provisional flight timetable “shortly,” he said in an emailed statement. Taxpayer Burden. “By placing South African Airways under business rescue , the South African government

A rescue plan for South Africa 's state-owned SAA has been approved - but requires the government to find at least 10 billion rand of new funding.

"Scuttled by years of incompetence and corruption"

The company, which has not made a profit for ten years, had become the symbol of corruption during the years of Jacob Zuma's regime, "scuttled by years of incompetence and corruption, ”to use the words of a former deputy general manager.

The rescue of the company came at the cost of an intense battle within the government between the Ministry of Public Enterprises and the Ministry of Finance. The government is divided on the attitude to take towards public enterprises, almost all of them in debt. Cyril Ramaphosa also warned ten days ago that they should tighten their belts.

► Read also: South African Airways, Africa's 2nd largest airline, on the verge of bankruptcy