Cape Town - The Democratic Alliance has slammed government’s efforts to revive ailing State-Owned Entities, saying that good money was thrown after bad.
DA public enterprises spokesperson Natasha Mazzone briefed the media on Thursday, where the party outlined how state capture has led to the collapse of several state departments.
Mazzone said: “SAA has been one of the most inefficient and worst run SOEs, hollowed out by State Capture and mismanagement by ANC cadres. Since 2009/10, the airline has received bailouts to the tune of R11.5 billion.
“This doesn’t even consider guarantees extended to the airline, the R5 billion transition finance agreement announced earlier in 2018, or the R21.7 billion promised over the next three years set out in SAA’s corporate plan,” said Mazzone.
The airline’s irregular expenditure came to R125.9 million and fruitless and wasteful expenditure amounted to R40.4 million, according to the Auditor General’s report for the previous financial year.
The ailing entity had failed to make a profit since 2011. The airline revealed a R5.6 billion loss for the year to March 2018 with revenue dipping R1 billion below its forecasts for the period.
Mazzone said systematic corruption and mismanagement at the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa) allowed the rail system into near collapse.
He said while Eskom was sinking in corruption, the SABC was failing to deliver its mandate as the public broadcaster.
She said it was “acting instead as a captured ‘state broadcaster’ that serves as an ANC mouthpiece and even dutifully airing videos made by the Party’s leader upon request”.
The public broadcaster has been in crossfire with the DA, after it had refused to air a message from the party's leader Mmusi Maimane on land expropriation.
The SABC, however, said it would not allow the DA to interfere with its editorial decisions.