According to the South Africa business rag website, Business Day Live, Mzimela told her staff her resignation was “not a random move”. She wanted somebody else “to pilot the company into the future”. Talking about pilots, it was under her rule that the airline proudly pronounced it would exclusively only train black pilot cadets, no matter the merit of non-black candidates. It was also under her rule the airline chopped the popular and lucrative Cape town to London route and sold off some of SAA’s Heathrow landing booths to try and make the bottom line on her books look better.
This resignation comes only weeks after SAA’s chairwoman Cheryl Carolus and six board members resigned. SAA is expected to report a R1.25 billion loss for the financial year that ended on March 31. Last week South Africa’s national treasury pledged a R5billion guarantee to support the airline. This will enable SAA to borrow from financial markets. SAA’s debt to equity ratio is said to be -359%.
In the mean time we are waiting to find out what is happening with SAA’s ugly little sister, SA Express. They are still not off the hook for their inability to add 2 and 2. Apparently an investigation is ongoing. Let’s hope they reach a conclusion by the end of this millennium. Earlier this year SA Express’ propeller driven bookkeeping was found wanting when the entire board of directors were fired because their auditors was unable to verify more than R1-bn in accounting adjustments in the 2010/2011 financial year. Gigaba sacked the board and requested an inquest. Now the question remains if the poor airline’s management knew about the bungling or were merely incompetent. We say if they did not make money disappear deliberately, chances are the latter is the obvious answer.
