TREASURER Jack Snelling has refused to support Zoos SA chief executive Chris West after another bailout.

A communication bungle has forced yet another public bailout of the troubled organisation, this time involving some $1.2 million.

The embarrassing revelation came late yesterday, four days after Cabinet signed the deal.

Mr West's wife, Di West, yesterday also resigned as head of corporate sponsorship amid the financial turmoil.

In a statement, the Zoos SA board expressed "complete confidence" in Mr West, but Mr Snelling declined to be drawn on the matter when The Advertiser asked his office for comment yesterday.

Mr Snelling said the new bailout, in addition to a multi-million-dollar handout to Zoos SA in November, was necessitated by a "miscommunication" during negotiations last year.

The Government gave Zoos SA $1.2 million in September to help it pay overdue bills.

Mr Snelling yesterday said Zoos SA wrongly understood the payment to be a special grant when the Government clearly intended it as an advance on annual funding from the next financial year.

Mr Snelling said he was now faced with a choice between letting the zoo close or again bailing it out.

"While we were in negotiations with the zoo, the Government had to top up their funding," he said yesterday.

"We were doing that by drawing forward their grants from later years.

"The zoo had understood something to be a grant, when in fact it was a draw-forward."

Opposition treasury spokesman Iain Evans said the Government had covered up the deal for almost a week before being caught out. The financial "stuff up" revealed "incompetence" by Mr Snelling, he said.

Mr Evans said the public could not have faith in the Government's ability to negotiate large funding deals including the Holden bailout if it could not successfully manage a $1.2 million advance to the zoo.

Premier Jay Weatherill yesterday ducked questions on the bailout.

Asked directly yesterday morning if Cabinet had approved a $1.2 million deal, he said: "I'll leave announcements about that to the Treasurer."

Zoos SA yesterday blamed Ms West's resignation on "ongoing media pressure, which suggested some conflicts of interest in her appointment or some inability to achieve results".

Originally published as Another Adelaide Zoo bailout bungle