SAA under fire in Parliament as Auditor-General questions carrier's financial statements

Just a few weeks ago, aviation analyst Guy Leitch questioned the most recent financial statements from South African Airways (SAA).

The carrier said the fiscal year to end-March 2025 marked the second year a profit had been recorded since it exited business rescue in April 2021, which Leitch maintained is far from true.

Now SAA has been hit with another disclaimer by the Auditor-General (AG), when it was back before Parliament to present its latest financials.

RELATED: Is SAA really operating at a profit? Aviation analyst Guy Leitch questions its 2025 report

The airline and members of its board appeared before the Transport Portfolio Committee to present its audit findings and annual report for the 2024/25 financial year. The AG's offfice also gave its own presentation on its audit findings of SAA and some of subsidiaries that managed to submit financial statements.

"We have noted that the audit remains stagnant with the two entities, SA and SAA with disclaimed audits", said Thato Kunene, senior audit manager at the AG.

Transport Minister Barbara Creecy said it's unacceptable that the poor audits continue.

"We are very mindful that we’re in the public domain, and we are publicly accountable for our actions and it is beyond unacceptable to have repeat disclaimers."

Stephen Grootes gets comment from chartered accountant Khaya Sithole, director at Corusca Consulting.

Sithole says the problem here is that South Africa is essentailly being forced to go back to a time when the national airline's financial statements and performance was so dire it had to go into business rescue.

"This was on the acknowledgement that - simply left to its own devices, SAA, its management and board quite simply did not have what it takes to turn it around."

"We then obviously went through the COVID period and the business rescue period... and then SAA emrged as a leaner organisation and there was an expectation that they had learned from the lessons of the past and we wouldn't find ourelves here again."

Against this backdrop, hearing from the AG that SAA is in complete disarray is not only disappointing, he says, but also quite alarming particularly given the reources that were poured into the airline for extended periods of time.

"The idea was always that eventually it would be turned around and would become an asset on the national balance sheet. Clearly that has not materialised yet."

The grilling in Parliament on Tuesday followed the resignation of SAA Group CEO, Professor John Lamola, and three non-executive directors earlier in April amid the airline's ongoing financial problems.

RELATED: Transport Minister accepts resignation of SAA Chief John Lamola

Sithole sketches a situation where the preparation process ahead of Tuesday's appearance, would have seen members of managment and the board looking at what they would be presenting and how they would be explaining the situation SAA is in.

"Naturally, when those conversation do centre around a picture that's bleak, you imagine there must be casualties and - although they're not going to confirm it on the record, its quite clear these resignations are on the back of seeing just how dire the situatin was that some board members maybe felt it was no longer tenable for them to be part of this institution."

"And the issue here is not just an entitiy that says they've had a bad year, and it's something that's being fixed - these issues are clearly structural and until we have an entire overhaul of the business model they are not going to turn this around any time soon."

The Money Show's repeated attempts to get comment from SAA have been unsuccessful.

Scroll up to the audio player to hear the full conversation about what is going on at our national airline