The airline – funded by public money – brought an urgent court application to prevent the contents of a damning internal report about its management and finances from being made pubic.
Meanwhile elite crime fighting unit – the Hawks – announced it will investigate the SAA’s financial losses and gross mismanagement, a step sighted by opposition parties as proof that even the Hawks think that SAA Chairperson, Dudu Myeni’s tenure at SAA has been nothing short of calamitous and worthy of criminal investigation.
Trade union Solidarity said the “damning” internal report, which SAA last week prevented from being published in the media by having obtained a court interdict in great haste, is in the public interest and is part of the public domain. The report mentions the large amounts of money SAA is owing to the European aircraft manufacturer Airbus.
The DA says the Hawks investigation should reveal how SAA was able to haemorrhage R4.7 billion in just one year, by exposing the corrupt mismanagement widely reported on.
The DA has called for Myeni to be removed from her post where she has led SAA from crisis to crisis, and now that a criminal investigation is open she must at least be immediately suspended pending the outcome of the Hawks investigation.
“Myeni’s presence and her brand of political meddling in every aspect of SAA will expose the Hawks probe to manipulation and in so doing cast a cloud over the credibility of the Hawks’ findings. The DA will also appeal to the Hawks to conduct their probe expediently to get to the bottom of the criminality of senior leadership at the airline, so that the mess at SAA can meet with necessary interventions,” says the DA in a statement.
According to Johan Botha, head of the professional industry at Solidarity, the latest internal report confirms the financial predicament the national airline finds itself in. “SAA is trying with all its might to prevent the truth about its precarious financial position from being revealed. This report is part of the public domain and SAA’s urgent court application demonstrates that this institution is not prepared to lay its cards on the table,” Botha explained.
The report also mentions the large amounts of money SAA is owing to the European aircraft manufacturer Airbus. “The reckless mismanagement prevailing at SAA is cause for grave concern and creates uncertainty among the institution’s employees given the recently completed 189 retrenchment process and the freezing of nearly 500 jobs by the national carrier,” Botha said.
According to Botha, the threatening attitude shown towards SAA pilots after they had tabled a motion of no confidence in SAA chair Dudu Myeni with good reason, is cause for concern. “We are concerned that the pilots will now be threatened with disciplinary action. As Solidarity we will do everything in our power to support and protect these pilots,” Botha confirmed.
In 2013 SAA spokesman Kabelo Ledwaba said the airline would only appoint male, white pilots when there were vacant posts for which applicants of other races could not be found.