[openfly]

SAA might be in protection, but in a couple of months they will be given another R5 billion. A continual drip of government funds. Funds that possibly disappear into personal foreign accounts? Those billions of Rand could have built thousands of solid homes for the millions that live in appalling conditions in shacks. That’s real poverty…not the so-called “poverty” in the U.K. Much of the SA population are suffering hardship due to ridiculous sums of money being pumped into SAA.

Time for the world to call a halt?!

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capetonianm, cwoodward, ImissConcorde

[capetonianm]

Just to validate openfly’s comments above :

According to new data released by Stats SA, poverty is on the rise in South Africa. The latest “Poverty Trends in South Africa” report shows that, despite the general decline in poverty between 2006 and 2011, poverty levels in South Africa rose in 2015. More than half of South Africans were poor in 2015, with the poverty headcount increasing to 55,5% from a series low of 53,2% in 2011. The figures are calculated using the upper-bound poverty line (UBPL) of R992 per person per month (pppm) in 2015 prices. This translates into over 30,4 million South Africans living in poverty in 2015.

These are official figures from the ZA department of statistics. One can only guess at the real figures being far higher.
R992 is about £50.
South Africa is the most unequal country in the world, according to a new report by the World Bank that listed 149 countries.

The ANC has miserably failed and betrayed those who voted for it and who were supposed to have had their lives improved, with more people now worse off than under apartheid, where they at least had a functioning, if inequitable, infrastructure. The biggest fail and cause of so much crime and suffering is the lack of education.

That’s where the money that has been poured into SAA should have gone, to benefit a wider population than just the elite who can fly and who are drawing fat salaries from SAA.

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cwoodward

[SimonS1]

[postquote quote=981998][/postquote]

Basically that is what is happening. Moodys have SA on 3 months notice of downgrade and when that happens (Feb 2020) you will hear the ‘whoosh’ as the economy goes down the nearest WC. Projections are that $15bn will flow out of the country almost as fast as ex president Gupta doing a runner to Dubai.

SAA is actually a small part of the mess, flying is relatively trivial when Eskom can’t even keep the lights on. Imagine, my colleague in Pretoria now says there is no point paying tolls on the roads, so few people pay them that the courts would be full for the next 10 years if Sanral attempted any recovery action.

And the government itself accepts BEE was an abject failure….no empowerment of black communities, just a few well connected snouts in the trough. Basically like Zimbabwe but on a much bigger scale. The scale of inequality is staggering, I read somewhere that top 5% of earners pay 95% of taxes, and these are the people most likely to head out the door.

Shame really, but somewhat inevitable.

As a company we have changed our policy to exclude SAA unless it is the only option. Better to pay a bit more and actually get where you want to go.

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openfly, capetonianm

[capetonianm]

Well said, Simon. Sadly those of us who understand these things and speak out are branded as ‘racist’ by those who have no clue about the reality.

3 users thanked author for this post.

cwoodward, SimonS1, openfly

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