South Africa's public enterprises minister, Pravin Gordhan, will likely decide on the sale of South African Airways' low-cost subsidiary Mango Airlines (MNO, Johannesburg O.R. Tambo) before the end of December or within 30 days of receiving an updated application and written motivation this month.

This is according to the latest status report to creditors by Sipho Sono, the administrator of Mango. The state-owned budget carrier has been in voluntary business rescue since July 2021 and has not flown since. An unnamed consortium has made an undisclosed offer for Mango likely to be a "nominal" consideration as stipulated by the airline's business rescue plan.

In terms of South Africa's Public Finance Management Act (PFMA), SAA submitted an application for the sale of Mango to Gordhan on September 30, 2022, during which it highlighted some areas of concern. Sono did not elaborate on the nature of these concerns. He had responded to them in a letter to the Minister on October 5, 2022, "so that the Minister could consider the PFMA application with the proper information and context in mind".

On October 26, 2022, Gordhan wrote a letter to SAA ordering the Board and Sono to resolve the concerns. Thereafter, he wants SAA to provide a written motivation on why he should approve the sale.

Gordhan stipulated that he be afforded 30 days to consider and approve the application only once SAA's concerns have been resolved. In terms of the PFMA, both the Ministers of Public Enterprises and Finance will have to give their consent for the sale. South Africa's Competition Commission will also have to approve the transaction.

Sono said he had since met with the SAA board and engaged with SAA as directed by the Minister. He anticipated that "SAA's concerns will be resolved expeditiously and an updated PFMA application and written motivation will be submitted to the Minister during November 2022".

During a subsequent report-back on November 15, 2022, to the parliamentary watchdog Standing Committee on Public Accounts (SCOPA), Gordhan and SAA Chief Executive Officer John Lamola were grilled on the proposed sale of Mango, amongst other matters.

Far-left Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) chairperson Veronica Mente queried the secrecy surrounding the identification of the preferred bidder for Mango describing the sale process as "a heist and not a transaction". Democratic Alliance (DA) lawmaker Alf Leest suggested that the ZAR819 million rand (USD48.1 million) appropriated for Mango from ZAR10.5 billion (USD617 million) of state aid for SAA "may have been irregularly spent by Mango on its business rescue process".

Lamola disclosed that SAA had withheld ZAR85 million (USD4.9 million) from Mango because it believed the stricken carrier did not require the additional funds until the conclusion of the sale. Both he and the Board felt that the business rescue process has gone on for too long.

Lamola said in July 2021, the SAA Board, as the 100% shareholder and with agreement from all relevant stakeholders, decided to place Mango into voluntary business rescue. At that point, the airline had debts of ZAR2.8 billion (USD164.6 million) and unused liabilities amounting to ZAR180 million (USD10.5 million). All employees were either retrenched or given voluntary severance packages. Apart from its licenses, currently suspended for two years, Mango has no assets of value.