Last week Friday, I flew to Cape Town for a meeting. I specifically requested that I be booked on SAA for two reasons: first, because it has always been my preferred airline when I was still a working individual and wanted to see and feel how the new one is shaping up. Second, because it is an airline owned by all of us as South African citizens.
The thing to notice is that whereas SAA used to be the dominant space occupier at both OR Tambo in Johannesburg and Cape Town airports, it is now puny, totally dominated by the new entrants.
However, the service on the ground and in the air is just as good as in the past. I have in the recent past flown on the other airlines and I didn’t have the same feeling as I had on SAA.
Perhaps a bit biased?
Most of the colleagues at the meeting we had on Saturday had problems flying to Cape Town and most could not fly back to Johannesburg on Sunday due to the shrunk capacity in our aviation industry – the demise of Kulula, British Airways, Mango and SA Express. A sinking feeling could not escape you.
A lot of people in the meeting were what Afrikaners call grootkoppe – the academic, economic and lawyer types. Some of their inputs at the meeting left one feeling really guilty and contrite.
The sum of what they were saying is that our generation, through our thieving, bumbling, sleaze and corruption, is sabotaging the future of our children and their children. What we steal is minuscule compared to the effects it has on the ability of the economy to grow, yield jobs and taxes. These taxes would then enable us to build early childhood development centres, schools, laboratories, finance higher education; build clinics and hospitals and hire enough nurses, doctors, pharmacists, procure medical equipment and medication; build roads and bridges; have enough law enforcement entities in the form of the police, prosecuting authorities and prisons, etc.
Right now, we all know that our education system is not doing well, from kindergarten right up to university. Without enough capacity to build more education infrastructure and have enough teachers, it means our children and grandchildren will not have the brightest of futures.
Some of the grootkoppe reckoned that while the country might have lost billions of rand through direct theft, it has probably lost trillions through loss of investor confidence and other economic actors.
If there is scarce capacity on the remaining airlines to ferry people around, how do people do business with ease?
If Eskom is struggling to keep the lights on, how do you motivate current businesses and others out there in the world to invest in our economy? Fund managers sitting all over the world give us a wide berth because we are so messed up.
So, these grootkoppe think the damage we are doing to our country is incalculable and will hit future generations hardest.
In an environment like ours, you tend to lose your brightest talents in the form of engineers, economists, scientists, academics and businesspeople, who tend to gravitate towards parts of the world that are doing well economically.
Here you don’t lose money, but ability to create wealth.
It was clear to all of us having those conversations that we are not about to rectify the situation in the near future.
There is decision-making paralysis in the country as leaders are preoccupied with stealing, fighting among themselves, and thinking about their political survival.
In any case, once destroyed, confidence takes a long time to restore.
- Mangena is former minister of science and technology
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