A Letter published in The Star of 27 February 2023 on page 5

 Will SAA R1bn bail out be worth it in the end?

The minister of finance in his budget speech started with good measures. It was exciting to hear him announce that Operation Vulindlela, which is a co-ordinated and concerted effort by all government departments to address the triple challenge of poverty, inequality and unemployment, will continue, and he allocated the budget to each department.

The minister then, deep at the end of his speech as if it was buried there, announced that R1 billion will be spent to bail out South African Airways (SAA) to conclude its business rescue and said if it works out, the government will be saved but if it does not, it will fail. By this he meant that if the bail-out succeeds, it will save jobs and resuscitate SAA so that it can start running for the benefit of the state but if it fails, all will be lost.

Why can't bail-outs also have incentives like the tax relief or the takeover of Eskom's debt? The government has to re-examine bail-outs and start seeing them as investments, not hand-outs. When someone invests, he takes a risk but is confident that the investment will earn returns. There is an incentive. The government has to be confident that bail-outs will be worth it for the employees and the well-being of the country.