Cope wishes to commend the good work done by Transnet, SA Express and, to a limited extent, SA Airways. I shall explain the latter during my speech.
It is our view that the manner in which Transnet and SA Express are conducting their business is a shining example and that other state-owned enterprises that are currently not doing so well should learn from these success stories.
Talking about SAA, may I, on behalf of my party, submit that whoever was responsible, in 2002, for placing a R1 billion order for 15 A320 Airbuses that we neither want nor can afford should be brought to account. This includes the former chief executive of SAA, Mr Andre Viljoen. This is nothing else but reckless business management and fruitless expenditure. [Interjections.] The acting CEO, Mr Chris Smith, correctly said, and Business Day echoed the same, and I quote:
It is fantastic news that SAA is able to report an operating profit of R1,1 billion in the year to March. Fantastic if you are able to overlook the R1 billion in fuel hedging losses, or other large and expensive legacy issues.
It is very clear to me that something is not right at our national carrier, and as a responsible Parliament we cannot fold our arms as if nothing untoward is happening.
Hon Marthinus van Schalkwyk, during his Budget Vote speech, warned SAA to get its house in order or else his department would be forced to reconsider their alliance. Preceding that was a statement attributed to Minister Hogan, cautioning that state-owned enterprises that do not put their house in order should be done away with, because they are costing the nation resources that could be better utilised elsewhere.
Cope is mindful of the strategic security imperatives that some of these state-owned enterprises have and we cannot do without them. However, they cannot perpetually ride on that fact. A strategy to turn around the fortunes of the likes of Denel has got to be developed as a matter of extreme urgency, because in our view the current strategic turnaround of Denel, which they started to implement in 2005, is not good enough.
The total staff complement at Denel is 7 198. Shocking statistics reveal that only 1% of these employees are of Indian origin, 16% are coloured and only 30% are African. The three race groups combined make up 47%, and the other 53% are all white. As if this were not enough, only 21,8% of employees at Denel are women.
If you look at their figures of people in management positions, engineers, scientists, technologists and artisans, the situation is even worse. [Time expired.]