South African carrier FlySafair is interested in buying the low-cost arm of state-owned South African Airways -- if it’s put up for sale by the embattled national carrier, Bloomberg News reported. FlySafair management has approached SAA’s administrators about a possible acquisition of Mango Airlines, Chief Executive Officer Elmar Conradie, 44, said in an interview on Tuesday. However, the business-rescue experts made clear their priority is to complete a turnaround plan of the main carrier due at the end of the month, he said.

Specialists appointed to try to save struggling South African Airways (SAA) said on Monday they plan to begin employee consultations on job cuts, a stage of the rescue plan likely to meet fierce resistance from trade unions, Reuters reported. “Our intention has always been to preserve as many jobs as possible through this process while still focusing on having a sustainable airline,” the practitioners Les Matuson and Siviwe Dongwana said in a joint statement, adding that they had notified at least seven different unions.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said his administration’s drive to turn the economy around will be protracted and is being frustrated by the rapid spread of the coronavirus around the globe and other factors beyond its control, Bloomberg News reported. “These are trying and testing times,” Ramaphosa said at a two-hour briefing to journalists in Cape Town on Tuesday. “I like to believe that we have entered an era where there is no longer any objection to reforms and transformation. We are going to reform.

The Congress of South African Trade Unions expects a plan that it’s proposing to save Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd. from its debt burden to be ready within weeks, said the labor federation’s parliamentary coordinator, Bloomberg News reported. The labor group, an ally of the ruling African National Congress, has proposed using the state pension fund manager, the Public Investment Corp., and government-owned development finance institutions to cut the power utility’s debt by 254 billion rand ($16.3 billion) to 200 billion rand.

Administrators for South Africa’s loss-making state airline have been given an extra month to complete a turnaround plan, Bloomberg News reported. The so-called Business Rescue Practitioners can now file their report on South African Airways by the end of March, they said in a statement on Friday. A majority of creditors agreed to the extension. Bloomberg News earlier reported the development. South Africa’s government placed SAA into a local form of bankruptcy protection late last year, a move designed to end a cycle of state bailouts and mounting losses.

South Africa’s government has announced plans to slash its public sector wage bill, setting President Cyril Ramaphosa on a collision course with the country’s powerful trade unions as he seeks to fix the biggest ever fiscal deficit in the post-apartheid era and avoid another ratings downgrade, the Financial Times reported. Tito Mboweni, Mr Ramaphosa’s finance minister, said in a budget speech on Wednesday that the state plans to cut 160bn rand ($10.5bn) from civil-servant pay in the next three years in order to halt a rapid rise in public debts between 2020 and 2021.

South Africa almost doubled the level of funding for the national airline to 16.4 billion rand ($1.1 billion), cash that will go toward supporting a restructuring plan for the technically insolvent carrier, Bloomberg News reported. The bailout will be used to service and pay debt previously guaranteed by the state over the “medium term,” Finance Minister Tito Mboweni said in his budget speech in Cape Town on Wednesday. The amount compares with 9.2 billion rand earmarked for South African Airways in October.

Hard-currency bond investors have already downgraded South Africa to junk. The premium investors demand to the country’s dollar debt rather than U.S. Treasuries climbed above the emerging-market average in October, shortly before Moody’s Investors Service cut the country’s credit outlook to negative, Bloomberg News reported. It has now been above the mean for the longest period since Bloomberg started tracking the data in 1997. Previously, South Africa’s sovereign spread crossed above the average for brief periods only during times of stress.

South Africa’s rising country risk is putting upward pressure on interest rates, even as inflation expectations decline, with credit-rating companies contributing to the negative sentiment, according to the central bank, Bloomberg News reported. Moody’s Investors Service cut its 2020 economic growth forecast for South Africa to 0.7% from 1% on Monday and said the nation’s relatively high real interest rates are constraining expansion.

The rand strengthened the most among emerging-market currencies on Friday as investors assessed President Cyril Ramaphosa’s pledges to overhaul South Africa’s electricity industry and curb government spending, Bloomberg News reported. While offering little that is new on the planned restructuring of Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd., Ramaphosa announced sweeping measures Thursday to address power shortages and reduce dependence on the debt-stricken utility.