SAA Business Rescue Practitioner and execs miss SCOPA meeting – again
16 March 2021
The Democratic Alliance (DA) is astounded that SiviweDongwana, one of South African Airways’ (SAA) two Business Rescue Practitioners (BRPs), has again managed to avoid accounting to Parliament for the airline’s business rescue debacle. Dongwana and SAA executives simply stayed away from a meeting with the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (SCOPA) today, on the basis that one of the BRPs, Les Matuson, had a bereavement in their family.
While it is absolutely understandable that Matuson was unable to attend due to the loss in his family, we are puzzled as to Dongwana and SAA executives absence.
There were two BRPs appointed for the SAA business rescue process, that has now taken some 16 months with absolutely no sign of a “rescue”, and there is absolutely no reason why the BRP not affected by the bereavement could not have appeared before SCOPA.
Dongwana being AWOL from Parliament is especially irksome given that the BRPs and their associated businesses have taken fees that are likely to be in the region of R300 million and growing. Not only have they taken massive fees from the taxpayer without achieving the rescue of SAA, they are now proposing that one of them, Dongwana (once the Director-General of Public Works during the Zuma/Nkandla scandal) and his business associate, Bongani Nkasana, be appointed as the so-called “receivers” for SAA.