Finance Minister Tito Mboweni on Sunday night asked his nearly one million followers on Twitter if the country needed a national airline.
SAA is not the only state-owned enterprise (SOE) that will get funds from the fiscus. Various SOEs will be funded to the tune of more than R20 billion over the next few years.
The Public Enterprises Department said it received 20 expressions of interest from private sector funders, private equity investors and partners for a restructured SAA.
Workers demonstrated after government missed a deadline to make funding available for a restructuring plan.
The administrators took control of state-owned SAA in December after almost a decade of financial losses and published a rescue plan in June following repeated delays and wrangling over its future.
The Public Enterprises Department said that efforts to finalise the business rescue process and a decision on the sources of funding would be announced soon.
SAA said that it had received offers from investors, private sector funders and future partners who wanted to kick-start the restructured airline.
A total of 3,142 SAA employees have applied for the voluntary severance packages.
It was unclear who the potential entities were who had shown interest in the troubled national airline.
An outstanding guarantee of R16.4 billion owed to SAA creditors was confirmed by government on Monday.
In court papers, Finance Minister Tito Mboweni said that government was considering a number of options to 'mobilise' funding, including approaching institutions for the investment of pension funds.
The Departments of Public Enterprises and Finance outlined the pledge in a letter on Wednesday evening to SAA's business rescue administrators.
Phillip Saunders has been appointed as interim CEO for a new national carrier.
About 2,700 workers will be retrenched and paid severance packages while 1,000 workers will be retained.
More than R10 billion is needed to get the airline off the ground after the business rescue plan was approved, but there is no word on where the funding will come from.
The broke airline went into business rescue in December last year following years of losses and state bailouts.
The Department of Public Enterprises said that the pilots wanted benefits that were far too costly and were not in the best interest of SAA, its employees, creditors and stakeholders.
Business rescue practitioners at the troubled airline wanted the court to set aside a court decision to halt retrenchments at SAA until a business rescue plan is adopted.
