SA airline unlikely to recover Zimbabwe debt

Parliament is convinced that the nearly R1bn the Zimbabwean Government owes to the cash-strapped national carrier South African Airways is unlikely to be recovered. TimesLIVE reports that this was the conclusion made by Mmusi Maimane, the chairperson of Parliament’s Standing Committee on Appropriations, following a meeting with the Department of International Relations & Co-operation (Dirco) on the long-running debt saga. Maimane made the remarks after Dirco DG Zane Dangor told his committee 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.