I am sitting in a Kenya Airways Boeing 787, flying from New York to Nairobi, and I am seething.
Kenya Airways, I read in the excellent The East African newspaper, has just declared a $42m profit. All I can think is: how did South Africa manage, in the space of just a few years in the 2010s, to plunge a profitable SAA into financial ruin? How did we make a useless, ill-equipped, politically connected ANC apparatchik chair of the board of such a precious entity, leading to its bankruptcy in 2019? How did people like the disgraced accountant Yakhe Kwinana end up on the board of such a key state-owned enterprise (SOE)?
Of the many acts of corruption of the 2010s, the collapse of SAA still rankles. Why haven’t those implicated been charged, convicted and jailed?
In 2015, EY said 28 of the 48 largest contracts awarded by SAA — running into billions of rand — were improperly negotiated, poorly contracted or weakly managed. The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa said then: “Corruption at SAA is rife, it’s clear that the SOE is being looted.”
In 2022 the Zondo commission said the overarching theme of SAA board chair and Jacob Zuma crony Dudu Myeni’s term between 2012 and 2017 could be described as the “antithesis of accountability”.
In the past I have flown SAA from Joburg to Lagos, to New York, to Mauritius, to London, to Victoria Falls and many other places. It used to fill me with pride. Service on those international routes was professional and excellent. The planes were well maintained. It wasn’t perfect, but it was ours and it represented us brilliantly across the globe.
Then the ANC of Zuma got its grubby hands on it and that was the end of that. Between 2009 and 2018 it was like hyenas tearing at carrion. From 49 aircraft SAA downsized to just six after the collapse of its finances. Today its new CEO, John Lamola, and other leaders are trying to rebuild, but we didn’t need to get to this stage of collapse. Political corruption destroyed SAA.
When I fly Kenya Airways or Ethiopian Airlines, I am reminded that despite the aviation industry’s challenges it is still possible to make an airline work on this continent. These and other airlines continue to grow and provide great service. Ethiopian Airlines last week signed a deal with the African Development Bank to build a $7.8bn airport just outside Addis Ababa.
I was angry about South Africa’s culture of impunity. I was angry about unpunished greed and sloth.
SAA used to be a leader among these airlines.
Here is the thing about SAA, though. Unlike the case at some SOEs, the graft at SAA is easy to identify. From the tender rigging to the appointment of corrupt cronies, prosecutable cases abound. A horde of culprits and their political principals in the administration should have been in court as soon as the Zondo commission was concluded.
Which brings us to the real issue: the failure by President Cyril Ramaphosa to fix the police and the prosecutorial services.
He promised to clear out the corrupt from the police (including the Hawks), the National Prosecuting Authority and other institutions. He vowed to usher in a new era of accountability. How is it that South Africans’ experience of these institutions is the same today as it was during the Zuma years, and sometimes even worse?
Why are the people of informal settlements such as Jukulyn or Marry Me in Soshanguve, Pretoria, turning to vigilantism when they have a police service that should protect them? These things are not unrelated.
So, as I stewed in my seat this week, watching as Kenyans beamed with pride as “asante sana” (thank you very much) and other courtesies passed between them and the cabin crew, I realised that I wasn’t just angry about SAA. I was angry about South Africa’s culture of impunity. I was angry about unpunished greed and sloth. I was angry that those who steal from the people they were elected to represent and protect continue to feed at the trough.
And nothing will be done about it. These corrupt ANC cronies broke an airline in full view of the public. They have walked away free and unpunished.
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