BREAKING NEWS: Zimbabwe threatens to attach SAA assets; airline says optimistic it can resolve impasse

Environment ministry plans to attach airline’s assets due even though Zimbabwean government owes the airline $59m

By Business Day

Zimbabwe’s environment ministry plans to attach SAA’s assets in that country for allegedly owing $2.4m in unpaid fees even as the Zimbabwean government owes the airline $59m in non-interest-bearing blocked funds.

About $62m in revenue that SAA earned in Zimbabwe has been blocked since 2016 due to foreign exchange repatriation challenges in Zimbabwe at that time. For the past three years, SAA’s management has liaised with the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe and its finance and economic development department to try to unblock the funds.

SAA said in a statement on Tuesday that it had reached an understanding with Zimbabwe’s permanent secretary of finance and economic development on various repayment arrangements. However, Zimbabwe’s environment ministry has now raised a claim of about $2.4m for what it claims to be unpaid “meteorological weather service fees” between 2006 and 2014.

SAA claims it has already in November 2023 paid US$877 435 towards this debt.

Nevertheless, the environment ministry proceeded with legal action and obtained a court order against SAA for $1.6m. Furthermore, on October 8 2024, the ministry obtained a writ of execution against SAA’s property in Zimbabwe. SAA did not clarify what assets it had in Zimbabwe that could be attached.

SAA is fighting back against the claim for unpaid fees and has informed Zimbabwe’s finance department that this is seen as “a malicious and unnecessarily disruptive action” by the environment ministry as the government of Zimbabwe owes SAA a much larger amount.

SAA has proposed that the debt due to the ministry be offset against the blocked funds, though the ministry appears to have declined this and wants to proceed with the writ of execution.

According to SAA, this is despite a senior Zimbabwe official having agreed in a phone conversation with CEO John Lamola to an offset approach.

“The conduct of the ministry of environment in Zimbabwe is contrary to the letter and spirit of our protracted engagements, first with the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe and later with the ministry of finance, on collecting the major debt of around R1bn due to SAA,” Lamola said.

“Our doors of engagement remain open. We are optimistic that an amicable solution to the current impasse will be found, and that Zimbabwe’s ministry of environment will desist from its threatened action against SAA’s operations in Zimbabwe.”