Madam House Chairperson, since 1994, the South African taxpayer has paid bailouts that amounts to R57 billion to the SA Airways. The SA Airways is bankrupt. The organisation is riddled with cadre deployment, corruption and entitlement amongst the unions representing the 11 000 employees.
Who in their right mind demands any salary increase at all from a bankrupt employer, let alone an 8% increase way above inflation? The irony is that they have been granted such an obscene increase by giving away other people's money.
Just this year alone, R5,5 billion in bailouts has already been paid to SA Airways all of it having to be borrowed at huge expense to future generations. Despite section 55 of the Public Finance Management Act, PFMA, that requires that the accounting authority submit financial statements within five months of the end of the financial year, the SA Airways board has not tabled annual financial statements for the past two financial years and is rapidly heading towards the end of the third financial year.
The SA Airways board of directors are simply flouting the law. They seem to think they are above the law and should be lauded for ignoring it. Section 22 of the Companies Act prohibits any company from continuing to trade when it is unable to pay its debts when they become due. This was made patently clear last week when Pravin Gordhan, the Minister of Public Enterprises, and the SA Airways board warned employees that SA Airways might not be able to pay salaries at the end of November.
There can be no doubt that the SA Airways directors are allowing SA Airways to trade recklessly and are acting in
violation of section 22 of the Companies Act. It is not only Dudu Myeni, the corporate warlord, who should be declared a delinquent director. It is unconscionable that the current directors allow SA Airways to continue to trade recklessly whilst they hold out a begging bowl for ever more bailouts.
The SA Airways board treats Parliament with complete disdain. Fourteen days ago, the Standing Committee on Public Accounts, Scopa, instructed SA Airways directors, who agreed, to provide the Scopa with certain documentation within 48 hours. The SA Airways is due to appear before the Scopa again on Wednesday, tomorrow, and yet none of the documents requested from SA Airways have yet been provided.
The board director who glibly quotes an unsupported figure of more than R40 billion that it would cost to liquidate the SA Airways is clearly attempting to frighten Parliament into agreeing to more bailouts. South Africans from all walks of life whether very poor or very rich have had enough of massive bailouts for SA Airways and it is only the ANC and the trade unions that
stubbornly persist with maintaining the SA Airways as a state-owned entity.
The SA Airways must be put into business rescue, the government guaranteed debt must be accommodated and SA Airways must be sold for whatever the best offer received from Branson, Emirates Airlines, Ethiopian Airlines or any other buyer. That is bottom line, Madam House Chairperson.