SAA spends R21 million on investigations yet takes no action

7 March 2017

A reply to a DA parliamentary question has revealed that South African Airways spent R 21 million on 16 investigations, all of which centred on allegations of fraud and corruption within SAA, but do not seem to have taken any action against those identified by the investigations.

All these investigations took place during the tenure of Ms Dudu Myeni as Chair of the SAA board, a position that she retained when a new board was appointed in September 2016.

The DA’s view that the reappointment of Ms Myeni as Chair of the SAA board was irrational has been vindicated.

Ms Myeni presided over all these immensely expensive investigations but there is no information that any person employed by or associated with SAA has, as a result of the investigations, been criminally charged or even disciplined within SAA and fired.

On the 2nd of February 2017, I submitted a PAIA application to the National Treasury to request copies of all these investigations.

On the 1st of March 2017, National Treasury requested that I grant them a further 30 days to allow them to consider my application.

I have granted their request despite my concerns that the reason given for the delay was:

"To facilitate this request, consultations among divisions of the National Treasury were necessary to decide upon the request and this could not be completed within the prescribed timeframe due to the unavailability of the concerned divisions…”.

We trust that these full reports, without any deletions, will be made available without further delay.

There can be no question that they must be made available before SAA appears before the Standing Committee on Finance on the 29th of March 2017.

Issued by Alf Lees, DA Shadow Deputy Minister of Finance, 7 March 2017