SIKONATHI MANTSHANTSHA: No gas? Cut off PetroSA’s oxygen
The government needs to bite the bullet and announce the sale of a majority stake in PetroSA
Now that the senseless strike at SAA has been settled, at great cost to both the company and the employees who downed tools for an 8% pay increase, SA needs to urgently tackle the colossal failure that is PetroSA. In financial 2019, PetroSA reported a net loss of R2.2bn, bringing its losses over the past five years alone to well over R20bn. One has to ask: what commercial or strategic purpose does PetroSA serve to justify the wastage of scarce resources?
This state-owned converter of natural gas to liquid fuel has served only as a drain on the fiscus, a vehicle to assist in the extraction of public money for the benefit of all manner of thieves connected to politicians and government officials. In the past 10 years PetroSA has not paid a cent in income tax or in dividends to the government. But the company is kept going courtesy of debt guarantees from the government. For what good reason exactly?..
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