The financial position of SAA continued to worsen in 2020. Picture: Henk Kruger/ Independent Newspapers
The financial woes of SAA deepened in the last few years as it continued to suffer more financial losses, despite the government pumping in billions of rands in bailouts.
In the audited financial statements of 2020, SAA suffered a loss of R5.7 billion and this came after another loss of R6.4bn in the previous financial year.
In fact, the airline has not reported a profit over the last 10 years and it relied on National Treasury to give it guarantees to remain in business.
The Auditor-General, Tsakani Maluleke found that SAA did not disclose all the information on irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure.
This was required in terms of the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA). However, the airline did not provide all the required information on irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure.
“I was unable to obtain sufficient appropriate audit evidence that disciplinary steps were taken against officials who had incurred fruitless and wasteful expenditure as required by section 51(1)(e)(iii) of the PFMA. This was due to proper and complete records that were not maintained as evidence to support the investigations into fruitless and wasteful expenditure.
“I was unable to obtain sufficient appropriate audit evidence that investigations were conducted into all allegations of financial misconduct committed by officials, as required by treasury regulation 33.1.1,” said Maluleke.
SAA said it received a bailout of R5.5bn from government during the year under review. It used R2bn of that money as working capital and R3.5bn to pay lenders.
However, the auditor-general issued another disclaimed audit opinion for 2020. The financial situation at SAA had not improved during the year under review.
In her report, the auditor-general found that she was not able to get sufficient evidence to confirm the information she was receiving from SAA. Record keeping at SAA was in a poor state, said the auditor-general.
This related to a range of issues at SAA and the auditor-general said this led to her being unable to confirm whether the information she received from the airline was correct or not.
If there was no sufficient evidence before her, she will not be able to make an opinion on the audit she is conducting.
siyabonga.mkhwanazi@inl.co.za
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