COVID-19 pandemic another blow to struggling Denel Written by Guy Martin - 335 The COVID-19 pandemic further hurt an already struggling Denel and further exacerbated its liquidity situation, the company said. In its recently released 2019/20 annual report, former Interim Group CEO Talib Sadik noted that the hard lockdown from March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic impacted on production and also on the payment of salaries for the months of April to July 2020, with net salaries for the months of May to July not being fully paid to employees, and the payroll third-party statutory payments not being paid from April to July 2020.