The DA calls for SAA's new acting CEO to appear before SCOPA

15 April 2021

The DA is astounded by the appointment of Thomas Kgokolo as the acting SAA CEO. He is the latest person appointed to run the embattled airline despite having no experience in running an airline.

Kgokolo has no real competitive commercial experience in any private sector let alone the airline industry and therefore chances of him making SAA profitable are to all intents and purposes non-existent.

He will undoubtedly be paid a very handsome salary and allowances even whilst SAA is under the administration of the business rescue practitioners so one wonders what value SAA and the taxpayer will get from the payments to Kgokolo and his executive. Surprisingly, SAA seemingly has enough money to pay high salaries, allowances and fees to the SAA CEO, other executives and the SAA board members, not forgetting the business rescue practitioners, Siviwe Dongwana and Les Matuson, but does not have enough money to pay employees their full salaries.

The DA calls for the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (SCOPA) to invite Thomas Kgokolo, the new acting CEO of SAA, to appear before the committee to explain what he, as a chartered accountant, is going to do to ensure that the annual financial statements for SAA which have not been tabled in parliament for the last three years are published without any further delay. He will be held accountable and will be acting as a delinquent director if he follows in the footsteps of his predecessors and fails to produce the financial statements

The DA holds the view that there is little or nothing left of SAA and its subsidiaries and this move to hire a person with no competitive commercial experience in the airline industry is but an exercise in futility to keep the ANC vanity project alive at taxpayer’s expense.

There is no way that SAA will succeed as a state-owned enterprise under the continual interference of ANC politicians and without ongoing taxpayer bailouts.

Issued by Alf Lees, DA Member of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts, 15 April 2021