It is unfortunate that such a long-established carrier has now come to an end, but as Caiman noted above, the government of South Africa has far higher priorities for public spending than keeping a national airline afloat.
It will be interesting to see how the void gets filled - will there be a significant number of different air carriers all serving SA with routes to their home base, or will Emirates move in and take over everything, with the result that if one wants to go to SA from anywhere, a plane change in Dubai will be needed.