SAA fails to instil confidence as more questions left unanswered
28 October 2016
The recent SAA press conference, following its long overdue AGM earlier this afternoon, leaves questions unanswered.
The recently appointed board failed to announce anything new that was not already said in parliament when the SAA board and executive were called to account after the 2014/15 and 2015/16 annual reports had been tabled.
The recycling of the rhetoric about yet another turn-around strategy and "strategies evolving" gives no comfort to South Africans who face the prospect of picking up the tab for the nearly R 20 billion in government guarantees.
According to Dudu Myeni, advertisements for the positions of CEO and CFO have not yet been published. There is clearly still no urgency on the part of the new board to actually take action to stop the airline from continuing to lose money.
The deputy chairperson was unable to address a question regarding the funding requirements for the beleaguered airline for the next two years and the board did not deal with the questions raised by the SAA Treasury memo which estimated that R 7 billion in government guarantees would be required instead of the R 4,7 billion rand guarantee that was actually given.
The fact that the auditors signed off the 2015/2016 annual financial statements and accepted the directors going concern assumption is outstanding and will be dealt with, amongst other issues when the SAA appear before the Standing Committee on Finance on the 16th of November 2016.
Issued by Alf Lees, DA Deputy Shadow Minister of Finance, 28 October 2016
