Opposition party the Democratic Alliance (DA) on Wednesday said it was pleased that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) was monitoring South Africa’s spending of its $4.3-billion in emergency support.

In a letter to IMF executive director Kristalina Georgieva, the DA claims that government is misusing the funds to bail out struggling national airline South African Airways (SAA) following news of a further R10.4-billion bailout.

In a statement, the DA said the IMF has acknowledged the need for government to weigh “subsidies to persistently loss making State-owned enterprises” like SAA, “against alternative uses of scarce public resources, including investments in alternative growth enhancing and/or poverty-reducing investments".

The DA claims that SAA’s bailout will be funded from Covid-19 economic stimulus expenditure or by cutting basic services.

The DA added that in her letter, Georgieva reiterated the importance of IMF emergency funds to be used “in an inclusive way to protect people’s lives and livelihoods, and in particular those of the most affected and least prepared to weather the crisis”.

The party said government’s alleged decision to prioritise SAA over urgent spending priorities was morally indefensible.

“This decision to throw the defunct airline another lifeline is at odds with the commitments Finance Minister Tito Mboweni made in his Letter of Intent (LOI) sent to the Fund to secure a $4.3-billion emergency loan. The LOI clearly commits the government to use the funding from the IMF to support health and frontline services, solve the balance of payments problems caused by the pandemic, protect the vulnerable, support economic reform, drive job creation and stabilise public debt,” the DA said.