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Cape Town – A defiant Dudu Myeni, SAA board chairperson, on Tuesday insisted that she attends all scheduled board meetings at the national carrier, but said she can’t be present at meetings where “only one item” was being discussed.
Speaking to journalists after SAA’s appearance before the standing committee on finance, Myeni refuted claims in the media that she was absent from board meetings which allegedly prompted the rest of the board to seek legal advice on the matter.
“I’ve attended all scheduled and regulated board meetings,” Myeni said. “I can’t attend a meeting where we’re dealing with one matter, one item, such as OUTA’s summons. That’s what I’m not going to do.”
She added that SAA’s non-executive directors can’t “have eight or ten board meetings”.
“We only meet quarterly. But because it is business unusual at SAA we have to meet on a regular basis – that one or two extra meetings.”
Myeni hinted however that she can’t be expected to be present at a board meeting if there wasn’t a sufficient notice period. “You can’t say today there must be a board meeting and the next day there’s a board meeting. According to the charter of the board you give seven days’ notice.”
Asked to respond to allegations that her board members did not want to appear with her at Parliament, Myeni said she did not entertain “anything” that was written in newspapers.
“One, I don’t buy newspapers and two, I don’t listen to those things, because tomorrow I’ll be accused of something because the newspaper says so. It can’t be.
“Yesterday I was accused by the newspaper of firing Minister Nene. Is it true? The next day it’s Guptas firing Nene, the next day it is something else. What are the real issues?” Myeni said.
Myeni alluded to a R1.4bn corruption tender at SAA, which should be on the agenda. “We need to deal with the real issues. Here we are talking about the chairperson not attending meetings. I’m saying we must raise issues in a fair and balanced way.”
SAA was supposed to give a presentation to the standing committee on finance on Tuesday about its strategic pillars, financial performance and debt maturities. Myeni, however, was the only board member present, along with SAA CFO Phumeza Nhantsi and Tleli Makhetha, General Manager of Cargo at SAA.
Musa Zwane, acting SAA CEO was also not present as he was on sick leave.
After a lengthy deliberation over whether SAA should present its case and Myeni should speak in the absence of the other 11 board members, Yunus Carrim (ANC), chairperson of the standing committee on finance, ruled that the scheduled briefing should take place in the first week of August in the presence of more board members.
He was however highly critical of the 11-page presentation that SAA handed out with scant details of the national carrier’s turnaround plan and debt situation “It’s pathetic and shameful,” he told SAA delegates and ordered them to have a more comprehensive document available at the next meeting.
Alf Lees, Democratic Alliance (DA) spokesperson on finance, said it was unacceptable that MPs debated whether Myeni should speak at the meeting or not.
“This airline is on the verge of bankruptcy,” Lees said. “It will close down and it will have huge implications for the economy and thousands of employees if we put this (the discussion about SAA’s debt maturities) on the schedule for September only.”
Carrim then ruled that SAA should provide answers there and then about its debt situation and whether it approached the Public Investment Corporation (PIC) for a loan.
Myeni did not respond to the questions herself, but delegated them to the two senior officials who accompanied her.
Nhantsi acknowledged that SAA had been in discussions with the PIC as part of a “range of possible investment partners”, while Makhetha said the national carrier is in the process of renegotiating its loans with the possibility of “rollovers” of its R9bn debt.
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