South African Airways (SAA) was likely to report its financials as a separate company for the 2006/07 financial year and its separation from its parent company Transnet was well under way, Public Enterprises Minister Alec Erwin said on Tuesday.
Addressing a media briefing, he said it was “a very difficult operation” because loans covered the two asset-bases and there were hard negotiations taking place between the state entities and the original lenders.
Some of the hardest negotiations were taking place with the South African National Treasury. He described the difficulty of these negotiations as fortunate. “We have basic agreement on what needs to be done. Now it is just hard work.”
Although Transnet CEO Maria Ramos said last year that the separation would be delayed at least until the end of 2006 due to the legislative process that had to be followed, Erwin said today that no legislation would need to be passed by Parliament. “We will not have to pass legislation as such.”
Transnet earmarked SAA as one of 13 “non-core” assets it wanted to dispose of in order to restructure the transport umbrella parastatal to focus on rail, ports and petroleum pipelines. — I-Net Bridge