BOKAMOSO
There is an ongoing debate about whether or not a country should own an airline. Many countries do so for national pride. Like many, I am proud of SAA as a national carrier. It is one of the oldest airlines in the world still operating. But it is simply wrong that poor South Africans are subsidizing rich people’s flights. The answer is to retain the SAA brand and lease it to private companies who can own and manage the airline. That way, it could soon be making a positive contribution to our tax revenue. The DA’s position is that SAA must be stabilized, professionalized, and sold off as soon as practically possible.
Perhaps this will be the week our government is finally forced to concede that SAA has reached the end of the road – or shall we say runway – as a state-owned entity. Loans of R6.9 billion are due tomorrow, 30 September. National Treasury has yet to reveal where this enormous amount of money will come from. And this is only the most immediate, not the greatest, of our SAA-inspired headaches. Treasury has already conceded that the airline will need another R13 billion in cash injections over the next two years – and that’s under an optimistic scenario in which the airline “turns around”.
SAA has become a bottomless pit into which government continues to pour precious public resources that should be spent on lifting 30 million South Africans out of poverty. It is hard to believe that any government hoping to be re-elected would take money from the poor to subsidize travel for the rich.
For almost two decades, the airline has relied on government bailouts and guarantees for its survival. The cumulative total of bailouts since 1999 is R14.4 billion, and National Treasury is currently trying to source another R10 billion for the airline in the next 24 hours. Government has already extended R19.1 billion in guarantees - meaning that nearly R35 billion of ordinary South Africans’ hard-earned money has been dedicated to keeping SAA in ‘business’. By 2019, that number will have risen to around R50 billion – an amount which could have given a million South Africans a decent home for the first time in their lives – think how life changing that would have been.