DA to probe performance of SAA CFO
At a recent meeting of the Standing Committee on Finance (SCOF), I managed to persuade National Treasury to announce that Ms Phumeza Nhantsi had been appointed as the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of South African Airways (SAA), after having served as the interim CFO since November 2015.
Her appointment as CFO has been made despite the enormous current projected losses of R4,6 billion for the 2016/17 year.
Furthermore, during her time as interim CFO, SAA was involved in a number of controversial financial debacles including the infamous Airbus debacle that resulted in Jacob Zuma firing Nhlanhla Nene as the Minister of Finance in December 2015, rocking South Africa's economy.
The most egregious financial crisis arose in July 2016 when SAA, apparently without following due process, appointed BnP Capital to raise debt funding for SAA at a fee cost to SAA of R256 million, a cost far exceeding what the market would have determined. When this outrageous contract was exposed by the DA and others, SAA were forced to cancel this contract but even so the cancelation fee was reported to amount to almost R50 million without any value at all received by SAA.
The BnP debacle was clearly pursued with the goal of enriching the principals of BnP at the expense of SAA and taxpayers. The same taxpayers who have had to continually bail out SAA, and will likely very soon have to bail SAA out yet again. The appointment of BnP was a financial contract and therefore would have required the approval of Ms Phumeza Nhantsi, the newly appointed CFO. Indeed the BnP contract may well have been initiated and negotiated by Ms Nhantsi.
SAA will be appearing before the SCOF on Wednesday the 17th of May 2017. At this meeting, I will ensure that the newly appointed SAA CFO is questioned about her performance as the interim CFO as well as her culpability with regard to the financial debacles at SAA during her time as the interim CFO.
Statement issued by Alf Lees MP, DA Shadow Deputy Minister of Finance, 12 May 2017
