SAA flying perilously close to empty

While it can fly high into the skies, the eagle still has to come down to land in order to eat and drink. Even after soaring above its political and financial accountability for the better part of the past four years, the eagle that is SA Airways was always going to have to come down to earth.

The urgent tone in the company’s “request for proposal” advertisement over the weekend, calling for the funding of its working and capital expenditure, shows that fateful day may be a lot closer than expected.

When that finally happens, it is going to be nasty and tragic for the approximately 11,500 employees who derive their income from the state-owned SAA. They will have been sacrificed for whatever gains the connected few continue to derive by causing the airline to fly with its nose facing downward.

SAA says it is looking for institutions to fund R16bn of working and capital expenditure and debt consolidation. It wants to start utilising the funds by the end of October.

The request came exactly a week after SAA’s audit and risk committee chair, Yakhe Kwinana, parachuted out of the institution. She said a business rescue filing and a possible liquidation were imminent if treasury did not dole out another R5bn of taxpayers’ money.

Kwinana left to shield herself and her audit company from potential reputational damage should that calamity come to pass. She had been on the SAA board since 2009.

As such, and in the strategic position she held, Kwinana is as responsible for the state in which SAA finds itself as are all the other directors (and President Jacob Zuma) who have presided over it during this period.

Not least among them is SAA chair Dudu Myeni, who is known to be close to Zuma. She has been accused of seeing off three cabinet ministers who had tried to bring SAA back on course.

A pity that not all the 11,500 employees can just leave, as Kwinana did.