Zim’s R1bn SAA debt unlikely to be recovered, says Maimane as Harare and Pretoria dither
South African parliamentary committee chair Mmusi Maimane stated that recovering nearly R1 billion in debt owed by Zimbabwe to South African Airways is highly improbable. Despite years of diplomatic efforts, the Zimbabwean government has refused to settle the outstanding ticket sales revenue.
Why it matters
This highlights the failure of diplomatic channels to resolve significant financial disputes between neighboring African nations, impacting the financial stability of state-owned enterprises.
Parliament is convinced that the nearly R1bn the Zimbabwean government owes to the cash-strapped national carrier SAA is unlikely to be recovered.
This was the conclusion made by Mmusi Maimane , the chairperson of the parliament’s standing committee on appropriations, following a meeting with the department of international relations (Dirco) on the long-running debt saga.
Maimane made the remarks after Dirco director-general Zane Dangor told his committee on Tuesday that diplomatic efforts by his department, the National Treasury, current and former international relations ministers over several years had yielded little result.
The previous and current government of Zimbabwe won’t budge on the more than R942m that it owes SAA in accumulated ticket sales revenue.
“Will we recoup funds from these countries? The short answer is improbable,” Maimane put it to Dangor.
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