One cannot help but wonder what is actually going on at South African Airways. The former SAA CEO Khaya Ngqula was paid R935m last year to terminate his contract by the very same company that is now suing him. Why?

The payment, according to media reports, include his R3, 831-million salary and ‘termination of contract benefits’ equal to R9, 35-million.

Recently, a forensic investigation into the airline’s financial mismanagement revealed among others, the R27 million that Ngqula paid to [his] executives as ‘retention bonuses’, an amount he was “not authorised to do” as it “was outside the board-approved mandate for payments”.

Now the airline’s new chairperson, Cheryl Carolus, is reported to have said that SAA will sue Ngqula for R30.8 million, and recover the R141m “in mis-spent sponsorship money”. She said the R27 million was in excess of the maximum financial limit and such excesses were not authorised by the board and this has resulted in Ngqula being found to have “acted illegally by approving it.”

On the list are also the two sports sponsorships that Ngqula allegedly approved between 2006 and 2009, Fin Week, South Africa’s weekly financial magazine, has reported. “One was R21m for Angel Cabrera, an international golf player, and the other one R120m for the ATP tennis tour.” She said the This R27 million was in excess of the maximum financial limit and such excesses were also not authorised by the board

Ngqula was apparently only, allowed to approve sponsorships of between R1m and R2m a year at most, Carolus told Fin Week, but instead, he went ahead and approved those of higher value than was expected of him.

The investigation, which began more than a year ago, was instituted after tender irregularities and fraud allegations were leveled against Ngqula. In the month that followed, March 2009, Ngqula left SAA “under a cloud” “after accepting a golden handshake of about R8m”, according to Fin Week.

What has since worsened the legal action against Ngqula is his failure to co-operate with the airline in its findings as he “demanded all sorts of conditions which made it impossible … to proceed with the interview [in which he will have had the chance to state his side of the story], according to a Business Day newspaper report, and therefore the “process was concluded without his input” despite him having “had the time to react to the findings, but had not co-operated.”

Despite there being ‘various weaknesses in SAA’s internal controls and procurement processes’, according to the then CEO André Viljoen – there was no reason for Ngqula to have taken advantage of the system as he seems to now have as indicated in the report. “The KPMG report showed there were huge gaps in terms of corporate governance, procurement and internal policies, which were now being addressed by CEO Siza Mzimela, said Carolus.

Business Day has reported that given the finding of the investigations against Ngqula, the latter was found to have been a “cavalier leader” and treated SAA as his “his own personal empire”. Ngqula is further alleged to have “spent R500000 hosting friends and associates at the expense of the airline. These included trips to the Soccer World Cup in Germany in 2006, the Rugby World Cup in France in 2007 and a tennis tournament in Monte Carlo in 2008” the newspaper reported today.

What is even worrying about the findings of the report is the failure of the previous board and the then CEOs’ failure in trying to solve these “transgressions seriously” just before the Public Enterprises Minister Brigitte Mabandla intervened in February last year, the Business Day has wondered. Of course this is very true.

Both opposition party, Democratic Alliance (DA), and COSATU welcomed the board’s decision to pursue legal actions against Ngqula. COSATU said the decision was “a great victory for the SA Transport and Allied Workers’ Union (SATAWU) whose members first blew the whistle on the [Ngqula]”.

It congratulated its affiliate and stated that this was a “warning to any other executives that the trade unions will now be even more determined to follow SATAWU’s example and to blow the whistle of such examples of crass materialism and theft from a state-owned asset”.

DA shadow minister of Public Enterprises Manie van Dyk reportedly said in a statement (see here) that SAA’s decision to sue Ngqula represented a “departure from the general lack of responsibility that has come to define the other heads of state-owned entities (SOEs) responsible for financial mismanagement”.

Akanyang Merementsi blogs at Akanyang Africa.

Stories emerge every day of a new act of corruption and connivance.  Goldman’s role in the AIG bailout, talk of dodgy swap agreements between banks and Lehman’s prior to its collapse, Goldman’s ”off balance sheet” deals with Greece to help it cover up a shocker of a debt book, political corruption and thievery at every turn, Tim Geithner ‘forgetting’ to pay taxes owed (yes, that’s the tax collector guy in the US right now), SA president Jacob Zuma ’forgetting’ to declare all assets and ‘gifts’, Julius Malema scoring sweet tender deals via cozy ANC connections, and on and on and on.

Wherever the government-central bank-commercial banking cartel is involved you can be sure dodgy you-scratch-my-back-I-scratch-your-back deals are being forged, ‘favours’ being rendered, contracts being awarded, and grubby fingers being put in many a filthy cookie jar.

How’s this for a little theory: give the sheeple enough freedom and they’ll turn a blind eye to all this skullduggery.

It’s not that it doesn’t piss us off or that the media isn’t trying to unearth some of the rotten sludge, but it’s just that all the media snoopery only manages to scratch the surface.  Our valiant but lazy journos are like bloodhounds on the scent of wounded rabbit.  They’ve pounced on Malema and made him the poster boy for what’s wrong with our leaders.  All the better for the thousands of other gravy train merchants out there flying completely under the radar and pillaging the productive society with their political privilege.

All of us suckers just suck it up because, well, we all have a serious case of corruption burnout.  Most of us cease to be outraged when we hear of the latest theft by a public official or corruptitude among the banking elites.  We’re burnt out folks.  We can chase and hound and snoop and scoop and scratch and dig and do all the things we’re supposed to do to hold our political and monetary masters ‘accountable’, but in the end, unless the relationship between citizen and state is fundamentally changed, all we’ll ever be doing is chasing our tails from cradle to grave.

Corruption burnout is debilitating and citizens feel helpless, so the state has to feed us all just enough freedom and comfort so that we don’t take to the streets with pitchforks and petrol bombs.

This is an insidious system folks.  Most upper income earners in South Africa are paying about 1/3 of their income to a corrupt and inept state.  Let’s put that in perspective:  That means that from January through to the end of April, you’re working for the government.  From 1 May to 31 December you get to work for yourself.  Happy thought?  Didn’t think so.

Government is a legislatively protected enclave of parasites.  Corruption burnout has rendered us helpless and de-energised to do anything about it.  Our freedoms give us just enough comfort to be able to grudgingly ignore the thievery and unfair privilege.  Left alone this will render our social and economic system perpetually decrepit and sluggish.

The only answer to corruption burnout is for every free citizen to fundamentally rethink the role of the state and the role of the central bank and the commercial banking cartel.  This means more education and more people who know better standing up for freedom at every turn.

Yes, I’m on my soapbox today, but seriously folks, this is crucial to building real and lasting prosperity.

The state and the money manipulators have given us all corruption burnout.  This and our relatively comfortable freedoms have rendered the citizenry impotent.  The solution is to alter the view of what constitutes a free society.  South Africans gained a half-freedom in 1994, now its time to push on toward a truly free society and relegate the corruptocracy to the dustbin of history.

Freeman is a financial market economist. He writes for SA economics blog Human Action in his spare time.

Where do you start: nationalisation, disrespecting, swearing and even disgust at elders, shooting to kill, and labelling someone a “racist little girl”?

If anyone is to write a biography on Malema – that person would certainly have it both ways. This is because the process, not to forget the subject thereof, would certainly be quite interesting and enjoyable too. I mean, it’s Malema you’ll be writing about and too much should be expected.

Firstly, you are very much likely to have Malema agreeing to the biography wherein he would say many things, a lot of which we otherwise have never heard him say or being quoted as having said. Secondly, it would be funny in that you would hear a different version of his “controversial” statements which at times, have landed him in a ‘hot pot’ so that someone had to call in JZ.

However, what one can say for sure is that Julius Malema is an African National CongressYouth League president who speaks his mind. He does not care what position you hold in government or in the private sector. Moreover, the following are just some of the things likely to be included in Malema’s biography, I hope, by whoever will have the guts to write it.

• He is a “layman” who completed matric aged 21.
• He is, and can be very forgiving. He advised that former president Thabo Mbeki “not be charged” for a somewhat incomprehensible and ill-informed ‘genocide charged’ due to his alleged denial of HIV causing AIDS,
• Last year he said, “Nationalisation of mines was necessary to generate income for the government so that it could fund free education and provide better services for the people”. He recently reiterated that although the ANCYL agreed with JZ on nationalisation not being a government Public Policy, “no one should attempt to stop the… League [he leads] from raising the debate [on nationalisation]“ and that they therefore “don’t want Zuma’s or Mbalula’s support… [but] want the support of the masses” because the white people stole the land from the black majority, and he certainly will not let them steal the mines too this time.
• He can be very  mobilising of society against anyone he deems an enemy, or even corporations.
• He would certainly condemn you as “rascals and thugs” if you likened him to a “Mickey Mouse” probably for talking too much so that he sometimes gets into trouble with the big boss.
• He would eliminate anyone opposed to Zuma, and probably the ANC too — who knows?
• He certainly can be called to order for stepping out of “that line”.
• He can be very generous in giving to the somewhat needy when and as he sees fit.
• He is  ridiculously protected by state as if he is Mandela, Mbeki or even Zuma the president for his life is considered to be more in danger than yours and mine.
• He would tell you to accept the African leadership even when you do not agree with or accept it. Period!
• He believes that Zuma would probably even lead us from prison one day.

What South Africans came to know recently about Malema, except what we may have known before, is that the man is rich. The Sunday Times reported Malema as very rich. This was after the Star newspaper reported of his “millions” recently.

According to the Star report, Malema was able to buy two houses worth 4.6m, cars worth 1.2m and a Breitling watch to the value of 250.00. He now has about 3 cars, and is reportedly a director of four companies: 101 Junjus Trading CC, Blue Nightingale Trading 61, Ever Roaring Investment and SGL Engineering Projects.

When asked by the newspaper how he could afford such a luxurious lifestyle, the militant Malema said the journalist should rather write about herself, her husband and her family. “You and your husband and your family – that’s who you need to write about. You go away, just go away.” Now that’s AYOBA!

The league spokesperson Floyd Shivambu came to the defence of Malema in saying the newspaper was being “nonsensical” and asked if it could “rethink” what it was doing [reporting on Malema and auditing his 'luxurious' lifestyle]. “What business is this of yours? How dare you call me and ask for comment on this?” he asked the newspaper at the time.

DA youth league leader Khume Ramulifho told the Star that Malema is said to earn as much as a minister and “that is why he will not go to Parliament or take up any other office.”

Mail & Guardian Online reported that opposition party Freedom Front Plus was going to ask South Africa Revenue Service to “immediately investigate” Malema and his “real contribution” to income tax in recent years, and the ANC Youth League itself. The party’s parliamentary spokesperson Anton Alberts told the newspaper that if reports of Malema’s lifestyle are “correct” – it would only mean he lived “far above his income” and could not claim to be a communist by trying to nationalise the mines, but at the same time “live a capitalist”.

Given Malema’s response yesterday to SABC News that the ANC pays him well more than what the newspaper reported – then it is worth suspecting that he indeed he is being paid well enough to live this “lavishly luxurious” lifestyle. Or that somebody’s lying. And I just hope it is not the Star newspaper report that is lying to us, but Malema himself to the nation.

And this is your Julius Malema. He’s got a very good and expensive taste: look at his cars, the houses and the watch. Damn! As if that’s not enough, he is also very much protected by state security services, quite talkative and that comes with being “well paid”, I think.

I now have come to know and describe Malema as a “Communist Capitalist”. I must confess to not having heard such a name before or rather know of someone being described as such, and therefore, Malema sure as hell must be lucky to have such a name as names do not come easy for politicians in South Africa. This is because if former Heath Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang would still be alive, I would suggest you ask her on the Dr. Beetroot title and how that came about.

And what’s you definition of Malema? You heard mine?

By the way, I see no reason why The ANC and its youth wing would demand a “retraction and an apology from the Star newspaper as Mail & Guardian Online reported.

This, I think, is because someone – both the ANC and the Youth League in this case – has to prove the Star report otherwise by either stating all facts to the editor who will have to publish it – as it is already in the public domain and has generated “public interest” and is probably in the public interest by now – or write a complaint to the Ombudsman where all facts would be revealed.

But until then…

Akanyang Merementsi blogs at Akanyang Africa.