The Democratic Alliance (DA) is committed to mobilising all South Africans to stop the further use of public funds to bail out South African Airways (SAA). We believe it is morally wrong to prioritise SAA over other far more urgent public spending priorities. So many families have lost their jobs and livelihoods in recent months, and public services face massive cuts. To cut education, or healthcare, or social support at a time like this, to fund SAA, is indefensible.

And yet, we fully expect that the government will once again bail out SAA in next week’s mid-term budget.

Part of the reason SAA has been able to continue this long is thanks to the massive loans extended to SAA by South Africa’s major banks. All of these loans are guaranteed by the government, and therefore by the public, who eventually has to pay them back. This is just a bailout by stealth. The extension of these loans is not ethical business practice by the major banks. They know they will turn an easy profit on a guaranteed loan, to a company that would never ordinarily qualify. This too must stop.

As part of our effort to mobilise public pressure, we are today launching an online effort to get all South Africans to write to their bank to demand that they stop all further support for SAA. We have created a new webpage (https://www.da.org.za/end-saa-bailouts) for this purpose, with a pre-prepared letter that South Africans can use to email their bank’s CEO. We have also included the contact details of all bank CEO’s offices, for convenience.

South Africans can also draft their own emails, and use the contact details to send them off.

South African banks are known for not lending money to entrepreneurs and small businesses. However, they have been comfortable in granting loans to bankrupt SAA because even if the airline defaults on payments, their loans to SAA are guaranteed by the government. And that means they are guaranteed by you, the public.

We encourage everyone to take part in this campaign, and share it on social media to get the message out. The more pressure the banks feel, the more likely they are to decide to act ethically and stop their illegitimate support for SAA.

Banks should know that in helping to bail out SAA, they do not have the support of the South African public and their clients.

Issued by DA