Picture: Michel Bega
When it comes to diverting attention, some of our government spokespersons have developed the “it’s-not-ourfault” whiney excuse into a fine art. But department of public enterprises spin doctor Richard Mantu takes the cake when it comes to ignoring reality.
In a fulminating press release this week, Mantu attacked those who have been worrying about whether the deal to privatise SAA will ever happen. Questions were raised about whether the Takatso consortium will come up with the R3 billion it needs to finalise the deal to take over SAA.
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More concerns came later over the departure of Gidon Novick from the Takatso board. According to Mantu, though, this was all “deliberate misinformation” being spread by “competitors, detractors, and other forces”, adding that “the traveling public is being fleeced because of the shortage of seats.”
That “cast of villains” is quite something, even by the ANC’s standards of paranoid hatred of criticism. Naturally, the “competitors” were furious because, in a time of soaring fuel prices, all airlines are struggling to survive.
However, Mantu ignored the jumbo in the hangar: SAA crashed and burned in the first place because of incompetence and looting by his comrades in the ANC.
