Someone Who Can Do The Sums

THE most important asset of a company, in particular an airline, is its reputation. It must have a reputation of reliability and punctuality. Unfortunately, it appears to me that the present management has driven the reputation of Air Namibia against a brick wall.

Once it becomes known that an airline can no longer pay even for the fuel it needs, one wonders what other debts it has failed to pay and whether one can use the airline to fly to Europe or South Africa only to find on the return trip that the airline does not have the money to pay for the fuel to take you back home. One wonders whether those in charge of the management departments cannot do their sums.
Perhaps they need some support from an accountant to advise them which of their lines are operating profitable and which are not.
How can one buy airplanes at more than N$1-billion and the not have enough money to pay for the fuel that you need to fly them One also wonders how and who chooses the management team for Air Namibia and any other of the parastatals which appear to have similar problems from time to time.
As a taxpayer I must pay 50 percent of the money I earn to the Receiver of Revenue (income tax 37 percent, VAT 15 percent). I am really upset if I see that the money I worked so hard for and paid over to the Receiver is then used to patch up management mistakes of gigantic proportions in parastatal companies.
Is there not a way in which, among all the 75 percent who voted for Swapo, that managers can be found who know how to run a big company and know what is important and what is not With an airline, one thing that is important is to be able to do your sums and pay for your debts, in particular the fuel expenses.

A Vaatz
Windhoek

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