Chairperson, I would like to thank my colleague and comrade from the ANC benches who reminded us of the excellent performance of SA Express Airways, the state-owned enterprise entity. It has performed extremely well and it has shown a significant profit this year.
As he reminded us, its success should not just be measured in terms of profit. It also has the very significant, strategic and public role of linking our country to the region and the region to our country, encouraging tourism and job creation in South Africa, and indeed, in our region.
This performance is particularly remarkable in the current global climate in which no fewer than 30 privately-owned airlines have gone into liquidation over the last two years. It is important to underline this, because coming from the opposition benches, again today, but throughout the time, what they are trying to do is to sow demoralisation around the public sector and public ownership of entities. [Interjections.]
We have heard about other failed entities, Eskom and the SABC. Of course there are challenges in some of our state-owned enterprises. As the ANC government, we were the first to admit that, and we are trying to deal with that. The reasons underlying many of the problems in these publicly-owned enterprises today in South Africa have everything to do with bringing in private sector consultants like Coleman Andrews in the case of the SAA.
The problems we are dealing with within the SAA now date back to the ill- advised advice and practices of Coleman Andrews from the United States, bringing in private sector criteria and so forth. [Interjections.] Therefore, I would like to commend the member from the ANC who raised the importance of SA Express Airways. Let us learn important lessons from this success. I thank you.