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Cape Town – South Africa’s Cabinet lekgotla that was set for Thursday has resulted in Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba and Deputy Minister Sfiso Buthelezi delaying their meeting to discuss South African Airways (SAA) in Parliament by one day this week.
The standing committee on finance announced that Gigaba had requested that the meeting be held on Friday so that he could attend. “This seemed to me to be a reasonable request in the circumstances, and I propose we have the meeting from 09:30 to 13:00 on Friday, August 4,” committee chairperson Yunus Carrim said in a letter to members of the committee.
Democratic Alliance MP Alf Lees said the party is “somewhat concerned that the disaster of SAA has taken second place to an ANC Cabinet legotla”.
“The DA is adamant that SAA needs robust intervention in order to stem the massive losses that SAA is incurring every month that was highlighted by the R734m losses over April and May 2017 reported by SAA,” he told Fin24 on Monday. “These losses have persisted despite the appointment of a new board in September 2016.
“The most important issue that SAA must convince the standing committee on finance of is that there is a so-called turnaround strategy that is credible and will return SAA to profitability in a very short space of time.
“It is also important that the forensic investigation reports that the DA has being trying to obtain for the past eight months and which have only been received today must be fully interrogated,” he said.
“This includes the reports on the irregular contracts at SAA Technical that apparently amount to some R4.7bn (and) must be tabled for the full oversight of the standing committee on finance.
“We will very robustly require the deputy minister of finance to reassure the standing committee on finance that SAA chairperson Dudu Myeni will not be reappointed to the SAA board in any capacity at the end of her one-year term at the end of the August 2017.”
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