It would seem that Denel, South Africa’s state-owned aerospace and military tech company, is heading the same way as other SOEs. ‘In the financial year ending in 2020 its losses were R1.9bn, mainly due to rising operating costs, which is often a sign of high management overheads’, writes Jonathan Katzenellenbogen. He adds that the last time the company made a profit was in 2016/17, ‘R282m, which amounted to about 3.5 percent of sales’. Financial issues has seen some of Denel’s highly qualified employees pack their bags, seeking work elsewhere. According to Katzenellenbogen, this is due to the company’s ‘inability to meet its payroll on time’ among other concerns. Former engineers are now working for competitors in the UAE and Saudi Arabia which, says the writer, have ‘raised allegations of theft of intellectual property’. – Jarryd Neves