Thank you very much, hon House Chairperson. I would like to repeat what the hon Inkosi E M Buthelezi said when he opened this debate. In diagnosing the problem he said many have extensively diagnosed the rot and root causes for the failure. More recently some of the corrupt cronies have allegedly been fingered in the state capture. To summarise the rot; it is greed,
corruption, ... [Inaudible.] ... abuse of public funds, the deliberate disregard for our country's legislation, incompetent cadre deployment, compromised and unethical leadership.
The IFP has long held the view that SA Airways' reliance in state resources should be limited and phased out into a more sustainable cost model through a public private partnership agreement in order for it to become globally competitive, drive down costs and to restore service excellence. Hon Chairperson, as things stand now, SA Airways is trading recklessly as it has already been put. Instead of bailing out SA Airways, SA Airways should be bailing out South Africans. We are paying so much money to a business which is supposed to be generating money for the state and the fiscus for us to meet the competing priorities and challenges of our people to alleviate their plight and to deal with what we have consistently told the ANC the triple challenge of poverty, unemployment and inequality. That money should be coming from the SA Airways making money, yet those who live in conditions of poverty through their taxes have to bailout SA Airways.
We need to bite the bullet. No more bailouts because what you have done is that you have made bailouts a norm whereas they are an exception. It is inexcusable that we have bailed out SA Airways with over R57 billion and been a vacuum either way without any consequences, without any turnaround strategy and it continues as business as usual. SA Airways is holding the gun to our heads to say; if you don't bail us out then the economy will tank, but what has tanked is SA Airways.
Hon House Chairperson, the problem here is that we have a management crisis at the SA Airways and we have a leadership crisis. We need people who are fit for purpose with the necessary skills, knowledge and expertise to run the entity so that it can fulfill the multiple strategic priorities in which government continues to want it to be kept amongst those is for it to be an economic driver to be a jobs driver. However, as things stand now, SA Airways has become a drain on the National fiscus. As I said we need to bite the bullet. We have lamented long enough. The issue is; the Zondo Commission which is dealing with state capture should focus itself - because it is clear that the tentacles of corruption and state
capture were very much in the space of the state-owned enterprises, SOEs. We should be prioritising the Zondo Commission to be investigating why these entities continue to collapse.
If it means a particular focus on SA Airways and Eskom then we ... eh ... hhayi bo!
Sepedi:
MODULASETULO WA NGWAKO (Moh M G Boroto): Aowa, nna ga se nna.
IsiZulu: