The South African Federation of Trade Unions (SAFTU) condemns the comments made by Deputy President Paul Mashatile that South African Airways (SAA) should be sold to the private sector. The comments by Deputy President Mashatile are reckless, and smacks of a person desperate to appeal to and make himself likable to the private sector at the expense of the public.
These comments come at a time when there is an ideological onslaught against state and public ownership of the means of production and circulation. Further, they contradict the encouraging statement made by the Minister of Planning, Evaluation and Monitoring, Maropene Ramokgopa, who preferred that the State Owned Enterprises (SOEs) should remain 100% owned by the state.
SAFTU wants state companies to remain in the hands of the public, not to be sold to the private sector. It is through public ownership that our historic demand for an affordable, reliable and safe transport system can be achieved for the poor working class majority. This includes affordable planes, trains and buses. The relatively affordable Metrobus, which is wholly owned by the City of Johannesburg, is proof that public ownership of the modes of public transport can guarantee affordability and reliability.
Underwritten by the state, SAA should be an affordable Airbus. In that case, it can achieve two things: to help the working class people afford air travel, which, given the slow development of the faster railway, is the only mode of transport that is efficient for long-distance travel. This means migrant labourers from across 9 provinces, who are working in the different metropolitan cities can shorten the length of their trips to home, whilst reducing the road traffic that usually tragically cuts short, the lives of working-class people on our roads each festive season.
Furthermore, it can contribute to external and domestic tourism, thus strengthening the tourism sector which contributed a minuscule 3,5% to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2022 after being battered by Covid-19 restrictions and the sky-rocketed cost of living. Given a weaker currency, should a public SAA contribute to cheapening air travel, this could also boost inbound tourism. The consequence could be job creation.
Selling the airbus to the private sector, who are motivated only by profit, makes the airbuses inaccessible to working-class people. They can only ride airbuses when paid for by their employers on business trips, not for personal use. Therefore we reject Deputy President Mashatile’s call to auction the SAA, especially after a botched sale went south with Takatso Consortium.
The drive to privatise the state companies and liberalisation of markets that have predominantly been dominated by the state have found a refreshed discourse in the wake of the precipitous elections that eroded ANC’s domination. Bourgeois economists have thus found new confidence in calling for privatisation, backed by comments of people in government like the Deputy President, despite the government’s efforts to create a government holding company to preserve public ownership whilst insulating it from the executive interference that has brought many SOEs to their knees.
Besides his desire to have the whole-sale of SAA to the private sector, the deputy president prefers a public-private partnership. He is quoted saying he can consider “resuscitating SAA as a state-owned company but my approach would be to partner with the private sector because I don’t think the government will have all the money.” The Deputy President is wrong to think that the private sector will bring money to operate SAA if they were to partner with the government. The PPP models, and capital lately, demand government guarantees, including financial backing, which will be shouldered by the government’s fiscus.
So, it is wrong of Deputy President Mashatile to think that private holders will contribute financially and relieve the government. If history is a teacher, we learn that the government will continue to financially guarantee SAA even if its stake can be sold to the private sector.
Those who think ANC’s move to the right is because of President Cyril Ramaphosa, are disproven by the comments of the deputy president. The ANC is pro-market and has been since 1994. The call by the Deputy President to have SAA sold to the private sector also shows that talks insinuating the ANC was somewhat left is delusional. It has been proven not only by the comments of the Deputy President but by a track record of neoliberal policy since 1994. Therefore, the idea that a left coalition could have been formed with the ANC and other parties was based on a false premise.
