EFF condemns the privatization of SAA

12 June 2021

The EFF condemns the privatisation of South African Airways, which effectively means South Africa no longer has a national airline. This comes after incompetent Minister of Public Enterprises Jamnadas Gordhan confirmed that 51% of ownership and control of the airline has been sold to Takatso Consortium, leaving government with a 49% stake in the airline.

The stake which the consortium has purchased places it in firm control of SAA and is a signal that the program to auction all State-Owned Entities is being fast-tracked. It is ironic that a company that has been deliberately sabotaged for over a decade, and cited an non-profitable, is appealing enough to private capital to invest R3 billion in it.

It reveals that there is no financial or strategic basis for long-winded proposals to get supposed equity partners in SOE's, rather, it is an agenda to surrender South Africa to those with links to the current white establishment.

It is clear that the program of engineering a crisis to privatise national assets is the primary focus of Cyril Ramaphosa. His announcement of amending schedule 2 of the Electricity Regulation Act, to allow further access to Eskom's national grid by parasitic Independent Power Producers confirms this.

By the time the term of Ramaphosa ends, all basic needs of this country will be operated by private capital whose interests and loyalty is solely to profit.

The EFF will intensify mobilisation in defence of SOE's, and calls on all South Africans to rally behind the fight against the effective recolonization and auctioning of our country.

Issued by Vuyani Pambo, National Spokesperson, EFF, 12 June 2021