No one is to blame ?

Not only is the ANC incapable of running the country effectively; it is also unable to conduct its own affairs in an orderly fashion.

And arising out of this further evidence of incompetence is a remark that epitomises the party’s philosophy and guarantees that it will always be an administrative disaster.

This was made crystal clear at the weekend when the ANC’s Mpuma- langa secretary, Lucky Ndinisa, commenting on a monumental bungling of lists submitted to the Independent Electoral Commission, made this revealing confession:

“That an administrative error has occurred and we don’t want to apportion blame to anyone.”

A simple rule of decent management is that one does not grant responsibility without authority. Our ruling party turns logic on its head by granting authority without responsibility.

In the wonderful world of the collective, any mistakes have always been made by everyone involved and no individual is to carry the can and, hey presto, no one made a mistake because everyone did.

Thus no one was to blame for the Eskom disaster, no one was to blame for the SABC debacle and no one is to blame for the straits in which the SAA now finds itself. It must be conceded that the chief executives of the SABC and SAA are suspended but they are still drawing handsome packages.

In fact, it is interesting to note that Khaya Nqula, who is supposed to be running SAA, has earned well over R20 million in the four years he has been at the helm. This includes a delightful SAA innovation: “retention premiums”. These, by definition, suggest SAA had to give them or Nqula would have left the business for greener pastures.

For my part, I would have paid him to go. He had zero airline experience while his performance at the Industrial Development Corporation was, to be kind, below average. What we now face is the spectre of more billions of our taxes being poured down the SAA drain.

Now instead of sitting there like a snake paralysed by a mongoose, why doesn’t government get off its fat behind (have you noticed how many of our rulers are obese?) and do something about SAA instead of just feeding it our billions? Right now, SAA faces a potential claim of hundreds of millions from competitor Comair and the defunct Nationwide for alleged anti-competitive behaviour.

Perhaps there is an opportunity for the government in this further hurdle facing SAA. Clearly, the airline is worthless in a strict financial sense. Without the state standing ready to bale it out, it could very well be in danger of trading in an insolvent condition which is, of course, illegal.

Its name has brand value, although this has been degraded through recent incidents of drug smuggling. Service failures have resulted in disgruntled travellers and one often hears of those who refuse point blank to travel on SAA. Surely the time has arrived for the state to sit down with proven local operators such as Comair with superb and experienced management and a long history of profitable service to the flying public?

It must be preferable to hammer out an arrangement that would relieve taxpayers of a burden which they must shoulder in the interests of the top 10% of the population than for the state to battle on and on to keep SAA alive in its current terminal state.