EFF STATEMENT ON NATIONAL TREASURY INTERVENTION AGAINST SAA SUSPICIOUS AND UNSUSTAINABLE DEAL
22 December 2015
The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) notes and welcomes the intervention by National Treasury at South African Airways (SAA), to prevent the current Board from reckless trading and probably corrupt deals. The EFF is concerned that the current Board, trusted with oversight and strategic responsibilities of the national carrier, could be allowed to conduct themselves in such an unethical and irresponsible behaviour without sanctions. Behaviour aimed at nothing but transactions and business dealings that were in the interest of few individuals at the expense of shareholders and taxpayers.
The Chairperson of the SAA Board, Dudu Myeni, who is also the Chairperson of the Jacob Zuma Foundation, which is a private fundraising arm of Mr. Zuma is incapable of leading SAA and is unaware of the basic governance operations and systems that should be adhered with in order to save the Airline from permanent crisis. All the decisions she takes and influences are aimed at privately benefiting her associates and business interests, even when such costs the state billions of Rands.
The EFF calls for immediate removal of SAA Board in its entirety for the following reasons:
1. When Mr. Zuma moved SAA from the Department of Public Enterprise in December 2014, and place it under the National Treasury when the stand-offs between the Minister of Public Enterprise Lynne Brown and the Chairwoman Dudu Myeni was getting ugly, there were agreed targets of recovery. On the first and the second quarter, the National Treasury reported that of the agreed 75 KPIs, only 34 were met and reasons provided for KPIs not met were unsatisfactory.