RESPONSE TO DA MEMBER’S STATEMENT PERTAINING TO THE OPEN WATER AUDIT REPORT ON SAAT CONTRACT
The article in PoliticsWeb.co.za entitled “Answers needed on SAAT Bolloré scandal, ” refers.
Bolloré Africa Logistics SA (BALSA) would like to set the record straight on the matter of the Open Water Audit Report pertaining to the South African Airways Technical (SAAT) contract, which Mr. Alfred Lees’ statement mentions.
BALSA strongly denies all allegations of corrupt or unethical dealings with SAAT as alleged by the Open Water Audit Report. This is a position that BALSA has held since the first reportage on these audit reports.
BALSA has strongly challenged, and continues to strongly challenge, the legitimacy of the audit reports as presented to the SAAT board. In this regard, BALSA has approached both SAAT and Open Water on numerous occasions to engage on these reports and has not had any success – both SAAT and Open Water have not allowed for any open engagement to get to the bottom of these allegations.
Mentioning the awarding of the respective contract without mentioning what happened beyond the award presents an incomplete and misleading story. BALSA was indeed awarded the contract in 2016. For over one year, BALSA tried to engage with SAAT on the contract and received no favourable response at all. In June 2017, BALSA officially withdrew its interest in the contract because the BALSA board felt there was no intention on the part of SAAT to initiate contract negotiations.