SAA board member resignation – too late to escape

25 August 2016

The resignation of Ms Yakhe Kwinana from the board of SAA is an insincere and selfish move which smacks of a self-preserving act by a person around whom the walls of an investigation are closing fast.

OUTA is firm that Ms Kwinana,  together with Ms Dudu Myeni, the SAA Chairperson, will both be declared delinquent directors in due course.  Announcements on OUTA’s actions toward this outcome will be made in the near future.

“OUTA has been investigating Ms Kwinana’s conduct and dubious interference in decision making as an SAA board member for some time now, and her conduct falls very short when analysed against the test of a reasonable board member. She may run, but she cannot hide as her fingerprints are all over the cookie jar and they're not going away”, says Ivan Herselman, OUTA’s Director of Legal Affairs.

Ms Kwinana’s conduct as a professional has been somewhat unbecoming for a professional person in her position. Most notably, we believe she has acted with disregard for the principles and practises that govern her profession as a chartered accountant and falling well short of complying with the ethics in SA Institute of Chartered Accountants’ (SAICA) Code of Professional Conduct.

OUTA will level a list of notable acts of misconduct against Ms Kwinana, which we believe will prove her a delinquent director, the most recent one being BNP Capital Transaction Advisor deal, where she had approved (via signing and endorsing a resolution) the transaction, despite the requisite internal control measures relating thereto and sound internal advice from the Airline’s Treasury department being provided against this transaction.

In our opinion, Ms Kwinana’s lack of oversight when exercising these decisions, not only an independent board member but also as a chartered accountant and the chair of the board’s audit and risk committee, is a serious offence. Other forms of misconduct include the alleged intimidation of a number of executive staff members in relation to issues of procurement of service providers, whilst exercising an active role in influencing certain service provider appointments.

In OUTA’s quest to show that Ms Yakhe Kwinana has acted unlawfully or she is declared as a delinquent director, we will request that Kwinana & Associates, the auditing firm owned by Yakhe Kwinana, will no  longer be fit to do business with government, and therefore will also be requesting national Treasury to place a restriction on all organs of state from entering into any new business which has Ms Kwinana as a director, as her alleged unlawful conduct renders her unfit to provide services to government.

Issued by Ivan Herselman, OUTA Director of Legal Affairs, 25 August 2016