Latest News Archive

Please select Category, Year, and then Month to display items

SAA, fly me to the moon

01 September 2020 | Story Dr Cecile Duvenhage

Opinion article by Dr Cecile Duvenhage, Lecturer in the Department of Economics and Finance, University of the Free State

Awards and bailouts

The World Travel Awards recognised the state-owned enterprise (SOE), South African Airways (SAA), as Africa’s leading airline – every year from 1994 to 2015. However, behind the scenes, the flag carrier has repeatedly been given lifelines thanks to government guarantees. The last year that the SAA made a profit was in 2011.

Over the past decade, more than R16,5 billion in taxpayers' money was spent on bailouts for the airline. In the February 2020 budget, the government set aside R16,4 billion, of which R11,2 billion was for SAA’s debt-servicing costs.

The SAA has been fighting for its survival since it entered into voluntary business rescue in December 2019 and is facing liquidation after specialists were appointed at the end of April 2020 to try to save the airline.

How did SAA end up in this mess?

After the government deregulated the domestic airline industry in 1991, SAA lost its national market share (of 95%), especially to Comair and FlySafair. The airline was also hit on its African routes, where Ethiopian Airlines started to erode its competitive position. Theoretically speaking, deregulation breaks the market power of a monopoly, and inefficiency will put you out of business in a competitive environment.

Add the component of poor management and suspect tenders (pertaining to the former SAA chairperson Dudu Myeni’s plan to buy several Airbus planes, sell them to a local company, and then lease the planes back), and debt starts to snowball. Additional poor management decisions include the desperate saving measures on essential expenditure, which led to the buying of ‘fake parts’. Unnecessary sponsorships (ATP tennis), given a tight budget, reflect poor management decisions by SAA.

Surely, the weak rand played a role in the profitability of SAA, but also for the competitors who managed to survive due to efficient management.

So, what are the cards on the table?

The cards include liquidation, foreign direct investment (FDI), and a rescue package under Section 16 of the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA).

The liquidation of the airline will reduce future ongoing operational losses but will require the payment of creditors who rely on the so-called ‘implicit guarantee’ of ongoing funding by the state. Thus, debt claims cannot be avoided, as would be the case with conventional companies. Besides, there is no consensus regarding the liquidation cost – ranging from R2 billion to R60 billion.

Another card is the ‘restart’ of a new SAA, with a smaller international network. This airline needs to be financed by new investors, which might include large international airlines. In this case, the SA government will hold a minority stake, which requires a change of legislation to allow larger GDI into SA airlines. In attracting FDI, the SAA could be revived as a smaller international franchisee airline in cooperation with a larger international airline.

A further card is the option of using citizens’ pension as a business rescue package for the SAA under Section 16 of the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA).

Section 16 of the Public Finance Management Act

The purpose of the PFMA is “(t)o regulate financial management in the national government and provincial governments; to ensure that all revenue, expenditure, assets and liabilities of those governments are managed efficiently and effectively; to provide for the responsibilities of persons entrusted with financial management in those governments; and to provide for matters connected therewith.”

In terms of Section 16 of the PFMA, the Minister can authorise the use of funds, including the National Revenue Fund (NRF), to finance expenditure of an ‘exceptional nature’ which is currently not provided for and which cannot, without serious prejudice to the ‘public interest’, be postponed to a future Parliamentary appropriation of funds.

Thus, Section 16 allows the Minister of Finance to sidestep normal budgetary appropriation processes in an emergency to make money available for items of an ‘exceptional nature’ or unforeseen circumstances.

Exceptional and short-term orientated

Exceptional is synonymous with abnormal, atypical, and extraordinary. However, the improvement of the financial position of SAA through recapitalisation has been constantly on the government’s agenda since the February 2017 budget. Four months later (1 July 2017), the National Treasury published a media statement titled Government transfers funds from National Revenue Fund to South African Airways. The argument was that the SAA needed to be recapitalised to allow the airline to pay back its commitment to Standard Chartered Bank, thereby sidestepping a default.

How exceptional is inefficiency and poor management over a period of ten years, and how biased would such a transfer decision be towards public interest (that favours transparency and accountability), can be asked?

According to the July 2017 media statement, “default by the airline would have prompted a call on the guarantee, leading to an outflow” (take note: not will lead to an outflow) from the NRF and possibly resulting in higher awareness of risk related to the rest of the SAA's guaranteed debt.

The statement also adds that several options have been explored and given the nature of the problems at the SAA, Section 16 of the PFMA “had to be used as the last resort”. According to Minister Mboweni, the government is currently also considering several options, including that the government retains a percentage of the issued share capital in the new airline, finding private equity or strategic partners to take up shareholding in the new SAA, or approaching international or local funding institutions. Of course, local funding institutions include the National Revenue Fund.

Thus, the government may – and possibly already has – partly fund the recapitalisation of the airline using the NRF. Accusations from the Democratic Alliance (DA), an opposition party, state that the former Finance Minister, Malusi Gigaba, used R3 billion of emergency provisions to recapitalise the SAA in 2017.

The DA recently requested confirmation whether the SA Minister of Finance, Tito Mboweni, had again made ‘unlawful’ use of Section 16 in committing to provide and disburse public money for the SAA’s restructuring. The DA also asked the court to interdict SAA and its rescue practitioners (Siviwe Dongwana and Les Matuson) from using the money by any means. The application for the interdict has in the meantime been withdrawn, given the government’s commitment not to use Section 16.

Minister Tito Mboweni’s cards

Although Mboweni indicated that he would protect the efforts of those “who work day and night to make a success of this country”, he is up against a loaded team of government, SAA, and rescue practitioners. The minister expressed a preference for closing the SAA down, but Cabinet has given its backing to a business rescue plan.

The minister recently said that he did not authorise the ‘use’ of funds from the NRF for emergency funding, although he did not exclude the possibility of approaching ‘institutions’ to invest pension funds for this purpose.

The impact and implication of using NRF

What is in a name, a rose by any other name would smell as sweet? What is in a name, ‘using’, ‘investing’, or ‘mobilising’ pension funds? Do you smell a rose or a rat? Either way, it still boils down to the possibility of ‘getting access’ to the pension funds of hard-working SA citizens to bail out a straggling, poor-managed SOE.

Looking at the poor track record of the SAA and the bleak future of aviation in general (due to the global recession and impact of COVID-19), would an individual, conservative investor opt to invest in SAA? Only political allies making a political decision in their best interest, or aggressive investors being promised high returns on their investment, will take the bait.

My next concern – will the new, restructured SAA be able to generate profit to remunerate the invested ‘institutions’, given that it currently has only five planes to fly?

For a start, was the R3 billion emergency allocation (dated back to 2017) retrieved and paid back to the NRF? Hill-Lewis, representing the DA, argued that if the SAA had spent the funds (of 2020), the country and the public purse will be irreparably harmed. Thus, the money may not be retrieved, which will lead to anarchism in the country.

Most parties agree that the SAA remains a strategic asset to South Africa and to its role as the flag carrier, where it assists as an economic enabler with benefits across a wide range of economic activity. However, the parties do not agree on the finance model regarding the bailout of the SAA.

The new SAA needs to generate high profits in a competitive environment to be efficient and cost-effective in its management. Thus, the money need not be forthcoming from a future stream of ‘already recruited’ pension contributions of so-called ‘institutions’. If the latter is indeed the case regarding the generation of income, it reminds me of the activities associated with a pyramid scheme.

SAA, please do not fly us to doom.

News Archive

UFS awards degrees at autumn graduation ceremony

2009-04-28

The University of the Free State’s (UFS) autumn diploma and graduation ceremony took place this week in the Arena on the South Campus in Bloemfontein (formerly known as the Vista Campus). This arrangement has been made because of the large-scale renovations to the Callie Human Centre on the Main Campus.

Friday, 24 April 2009
Faculties of Health Sciences, Law and Theology Diploma ceremony

Law student’s achievement excels 80%
Four Law students obtained the LLB degree at this year’s autumn graduation ceremony of the University of the Free State (UFS) summa cum laude and were awarded the Moritz Bobbert Medal. They are from the left: Lezelle Olivier (80%), Albert Nell (91%) and Amanda du Toit (83%). LiFeng Chien were absent during the photo.

UFS awards degrees at autumn graduation ceremony
Today 331 students and five doctorates in the Faculties of Health Sciences, Law and Theology received their qualifications at this year’s autumn graduation ceremony of the University of the Free State (UFS). Michael Molahloe (left) and Mamokete Ntholeng both received their LL.B. degrees in the Faculty of Law.
Photo: Leonie Bolleurs

This year’s autumn graduation ceremony of the University of the Free State (UFS) was held on the South Campus. From the group of students that received their qualification from the Faculty of Law, is from the left: Janine Jonson, Anneska van der Spoel, Andrea Coetzer, and Jo-Mari Visser.
Photo: Leonie Bolleurs

Students in Nursing receive their degree
A group of students from the Faculty of Health Sciences received their B.Soc.Sc. degree at this year’s autumn graduation ceremony of the University of the Free State (UFS). At the occasion were, from the left: Ruth Beukes, Basetsana Panana, and Dipontsheng Tsolo.
Photo: Leonie Bolleurs

UFS Faculty of Health Sciences awards degrees
Liezl Swanepoel (left) and Heide van der Merwe received their BSocSC degrees at the University of the Free State’s (UFS) autumn graduation ceremony.
Photo: Leonie Bolleurs

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thursday, 23 April 2009
Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences & Chancellor’s Dinner

UFS awards unique doctorate
Dr Rodney Douglas, who had never obtained any formal undergraduate qualification, this week received a Ph.D. in Geography and Geology during the autumn graduation ceremony of the University of the Free State (UFS). The name of his thesis is “A new perspective on the geohydrological and surface processes controlling the depositional environment at the Florisbad archaeozoological site”. He had four papers published in journals that were related to his thesis. He obtained his South African Museums Association Diploma in Biology in 1988 and his M.Sc. in Environmental Biology at the University of Natal, Durban in 1992. He was accepted as a Master's degree student at that university based on research that he had conducted on, amongst others, the diets of reptiles. He has been working at the Department of Herpetology at the National Museum, Bloemfontein since 1984, where he holds the post of Principal Museum Scientist and Head of Department.
Photo: Leonie Bolleurs

Chancellor’s Dinner: UFS honours doctoral students
Last night, the University of the Free State (UFS) honoured students who had received their Ph.D. degrees at the autumn graduation ceremony this past week, at the Chancellor’s Dinner. A total of 25 doctorates were awarded during the respective ceremonies. Attending the occasion were, from the left: Dr Annemarie Kühn, Ph.D. in Chemistry, Prof. Jeanet Conradie, Department of Chemistry at the UFS and Dr Kühn’s promoter, Prof. Teuns Verschoor, Acting Rector of the UFS, Prof. Corene de Wet, Department of Comparative Education and Education Management at the UFS, and Dr Mafu Rakometsi, Chief Executive Officer of Umalusi and former head of the Free State Department of Education who received a Ph.D. in History. Prof. De Wet is Dr Rakometsi's co-promoter and the late Prof. Leo Barnard, former Head of the Department of History at the UFS, who passed away at the beginning of April 2009, was his promoter.
Photo: Leonie Bolleurs

Mrs Annemarie Kilian, Mr Willem Kilian (BSc. Hons) and Prof Stephanus Kilian
Photo: Mangaliso Radebe

Mr Jaco van der Merwe, Mr Renico Pretorius and Mr Rion Terblanche (all BSc. Quantity Survying)
Photo: Mangaliso Radebe

Ms Mamakoanyane Amelia Shata (BSc. Genetics and BSc. Hons. Plant Molecular Biology) and Mrs Maente Adelinah Shata.
Photo: Mangaliso Radebe

Mr Maurice Ambrose and Mr Owen Monk (both BSc. Quantity Survying).
Photo: Mangaliso Radebe

Ms Tobeka Mehlomekhulu (Lecturer: Department of Geography), Mr Neo Mokgosi (BSc. Hons. Genetics) and Ms Nwabisa Mehlomekhulu (BSc. Hons. Food Science).
Photo: Mangaliso Radebe

Mr John Mdane, Mr Fana Mdane (BSc. Information Technology) and Mrs Agnes Mdane
Photo: Mangaliso Radebe

Mr Kevin Vermaak (BSc. Hons. Geohydrology) and Ms Michelle Steenkamp (BSc. Hons. Geology).
Photo: Mangaliso Radebe

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

21 April 2009
Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences

Prof. Magda Fourie's daughter graduates
Nadia Fourie, daughter of Prof. Magda Fourie, former Vice-Rector: Academic Planning at the UFS and now Vice-Rector: Teaching at Stellenbosch University, received the B.Com. Law degree.
Photo: Lacea Loader

724 degrees were awarded during the ceremony of the Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences. Here are, from the left: Simon Serutla, B.Com. Accounting, Lourencia Hamuaka, B.Com. Honours in Financial Economics and Investment Management, Sunet Opperman, B. Accounting, and Yolandi Greyling, B. Accounting.
Photo: Lacea Loader

Students in the Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences graduated this week during the University of the Free State's (UFS) autumn graduation ceremony. Altogether 724 degrees were conferred. Here are, from the left: Marie-Louise Lombard, B.Com. Law, Adriaan van der Merwe, B.Com. Law and member of the Student Representative Council (Legal and Constitutional Affairs), Basanio Ncike, B.Com. Economics, and Richard Schooling, B.Com. Banking.
Photo: Lacea Loader

Center for Accounting honours top achievers
The Centre for Accounting at the University of the Free State (UFS) honoured the top ten students in the third-year B.Com. and B.Com. Hons. programmes respectively during this week's autumn graduation ceremony. Here are, from the left: Prof. Ronell Britz, Chairperson of the centre, Nils Kotze, first place in the B.Com. third-year group, and Madri Victor, first place in the B.Com. Hons. group; back: Prof. Hentie van Wyk, Programme Director: Accountant Training.
Photo: Stephen Collett

Accounting firms in Free State help with recognition of top achievers
Accounting firms in the Free State have contributed to a fund at the University of the Free State’s (UFS) Centre for Accounting to give recognition to top achievers in the third-year programme for the B.Com. and B.Com Hons. degrees respectively this week. It is evidence of the good relationship that exists between the Centre and the South African Institute for Chartered Accountants (SAICA), Free State. Here, from the left, are: Mr Pieter Clase, CoetzeeSmit Chartered Accountants, Mr Oswald Wentworth, KPMG, Mr Ettienne van Niekerk, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Herman Leach, Gobodo Inc. Chartered Accountants, and Mr Stefan Strydom, Havenga, Rossouw & Viljoen; front: Mr Ian Smit, Enslins Bloemfontein, Ms Thelma Crossman, Mazars, and Ms Daphline O'Brien, Ernst & Young.
Photo: Stephen Collett

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

20 April 2009
Faculty of Education, Faculty of the Humanities.

CHESD awards 15 masters degrees
A group of 15 students received the Structured M.A. (Higher Education Studies) of the Centre for Higher Education Studies and Development (CHESD) at this year’s autumn graduation ceremony of the University of the Free State (UFS). This is the biggest group in the centre's history to be awarded master’s degrees, while four of the students received distinctions. Also of interest is that six of the 15 students already have doctoral degrees. At the occasion were, from the left: Dr Dipane Hlalele, Qwaqwa Campus, Ms Liesl Hoare, Central Univeristy of Technology, Welkom Campus (best achiever), and Dr Fanus van Tonder, Programme Director: Higher Education Studies and Research, CHESD. Ms Hoare received the Deans medal in the Faculty of the Humanities as the best master’s graduate student at the graduation ceremony. At the faculty’s prize function she also received the Kovsie-Alumni Trust award as the best M.A student in the faculty. She also received the CHESD Prize for the best achievement in the Structured M.A. (Higher Education Studies).
Photo: Leonie Bolleurs

UFS awards degrees at autumn graduation ceremony
Five hundred and eighty six degrees and nine doctorates were awarded this week during this year's autumn graduation ceremony on the South Campus of the University of the Free State (UFS) to students in the Faculty of the Humanities. At the occasion were, from the left: Nicola Bekker, Madré van der Merwe and Esté Scholtz. All three the ladies received the qualification B.A. Language Practice.
Photo: Lacea Loader

This year’s autumn graduation ceremony of the University of the Free State (UFS) is held on the South Campus in Bloemfontein. Today a group of students from the Programme: Governance and Political Transformation in the Faculty of the Humanities received their qualification. From the left, front are: Dr Tania Coetzee, Head of the Programme: Governance and Political Transformation, and Mr Itumeleng Liba, Chief Operation Officer at CENTLEC; back: Mr Kennett Sinclair, Vice-Chairperson of COPE in the Northern Cape, Ms Nicole Joannou, Goldfields Business and Catering, and Mr Tembeni Lobe from Bloemfontein.
Photo: Lacea Loader

Some of the students who received their qualifications during this week's graduation ceremony of the Faculty of the Humanities were, from the left: Shu-Jung Chan, B.Mus. Hons., Brian Gxavu, B.Mus., and Mpolokeng Lepote, B.A. Media Studies.
Photo: Lacea Loader

UFS’s CHESD awards doctoral degree
Ms Mardi Delport (middle), Assistant Director: Media and Communications at the Central University of Technology received her Doctoral degree at this year’s autumn graduation ceremony of the University of the Free State (UFS). The title of her thesis is: “An internal communication model for the Central University of Technology, Free State as a multi-campus institution”. With her are her promoter Prof. Driekie Hay (left), Vice-Rector: Academic Planning, and her co-promoter, Prof. Annette Wilkinson (right) from the Centre for Higher Education Studies and Development (CHESD) at the UFS.
Photo: Leonie Bolleurs

Back

Economic and Management Sciences

Education

Health Sciences

The Humanities

Law

Natural and Agricultural Sciences

Theology and Religion

Open Distance Learning

Business School

We use cookies to make interactions with our websites and services easy and meaningful. To better understand how they are used, read more about the UFS cookie policy. By continuing to use this site you are giving us your consent to do this.

Accept