SAA must show us the money

South African Airways (SAA) is the poster child for how not to run a state-owned enterprise: it was collapsed financially by weapons-grade looting by the ANC and its hangers-on, garnished with a side of cadre-deployment incompetence.

It has been put into business rescue and come out the other side without ordinary South Africans – those of us who pay through our tax noses to keep it stumbling along – knowing exactly what is happening to the money.

That’s because the airline has, for years now, failed to publish its full financial statements.

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And not only has this practice been condoned by the government, it appears that the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission – allegedly the watchdog over corporate governance – has apparently been turning a blind eye to what, prima facie, looks like an egregious contravention of the Companies Act.

The airline already has some form in this area, with its former chair, the late Dudu Myeni, being declared a delinquent director for her failure to carry out her legal, fiduciary duties.

Without sight of SAA’s real balance sheets, how are we to know whether the airline’s current bosses are not just spinning other clever little scams when they claim it can succeed and fly its way out of trouble?

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All it needs, would you believe it, is some faith from an investor who will assume custody of the poison chalice which the taxpayer currently holds.

SAA has already sucked up billions in bailouts with state money and the numbers were clearly a big issue in the failed privatisation bid by the Takatso consortium.

How big an issue? We’ll never know because SAA appears to have completely switched off its financial accounting transponders…

It is beyond time that there was transparency with SAA… so we can decide whether it is even worth allowing it to live.