Business Leadership South Africa (BLSA) is saddened by the passing of the business icon, Dr Richard Maponya, who passed away on the morning of the 6th January 2020 after a short illness.

There’s much introspection that we as business need to do, particularly to gauge just where we need to improve our relations with all our stakeholders. This is a conversation that isn’t reserved just for South Africa because of any uniqueness in our history, but one that can increasingly take shape across the globe. While the Ethics Barometer has been acclimatised to our local conditions, the Harvard-developed tool is relevant internationally.

SAA and its stakeholders are striking this weekend and the airline will lose about R50m a day, but what we would ask of its shareholder representative that it now back its board and executive in managing its dispute. To intervene now would only strengthen the belief among unions that it is indeed “too big, too fail”, serving to harden positions and in effect hasten SAA’s demise.