End of Gordhan’s crash-and-burn term can’t come soon enough

THE future of South African Airways is up in the air after the announcement this week of the collapse of a deal to sell a 51% stake in the national carrier to the Takatso Consortium.

The controversial “R51” deal, which had been on the table for over two years, never quite got off the ground, and faced plenty of turbulence in the form of corruption allegations against Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan, who up until today refuses to answer questions or release documents relating to the sale.

Takatso had been expected to inject R3 billion into the ailing airline in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic, when SAA had just come out of business rescue and hadn’t been operating for 18 months.

Again, very little detail from Gordhan on how and why the deal fell through.

But SAA’s nosedive started long before then. The airline, which turns 90 this year, last turned in a profit in 2011.

The South African Treasury reported that the airline had incurred a total loss of R32bn between 2008 and 2020; and had received a total of R50bn in government bailouts between 2004 and 2020.

This as SAA sank under the weight of mismanagement, an excessive head count and poor service.

Gordhan sought to assure that the airline, back in the hands of the state, would be able to sustain itself for the next 12 to 18 months without the need for government bailouts.

There were various other ways in which immediate financing could be obtained without troubling the fiscus, he said.

And SAA workers and their families’ livelihoods would be safe.

How exactly? Another well-kept secret, it would seem.

The reality is without a significant turnaround plan, our once proud flag carrier may well end up crash-landing in a scrapyard littered with the debris of South Africa’s other failed stateowned enterprises.

It would be a final crushing blow to mark the end of what has been a truly destructive term in charge of the Department of Public Enterprises.

While we hope to never see the SAA grounded interminably, the day that Gordhan retires at the end of the current administration could not come soon enough.