Parastatals face bullet

State-owned entities were no longer "sacrosanct" and untouchable, Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan said during his Budget speech yesterday as he announced that the government was mulling over plans to merge, reconfigure or even close some of the poorly performing ones.Struggling SA Airways faces the possibility of being told to merge with SA Express, and Gordhan has given the strongest indication yet that the government is considering hooking it up with a private-sector investor.