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SAA chair Dudu Myeni: 'I never appoint myself'

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Cape Town - The board of South African Airways (SAA) can expect to come under fire from MPs as they appear before Parliament’s standing committee on finance on Tuesday.

SAA tabled its preliminary financial statements just before the deadline, but one critical element — the Auditor’s report — was missing, which could lead to material changes in the airline’s financial affairs.

MPs will try to get to the bottom of the issues that have plagued the national carrier for the past number of years and hold the board and executives to account.

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20 Sep 2016

The meeting has come to a close.

20 Sep 2016

SAA chairperson Dudu Myeni has been delayed and the meeting has officially started without her. Finance deputy minister Mcebisi Jonas and Director-General of Treasury Lungisa Fuzile are present. Standing committee on Finance chair Yunus Carrim has asked Treasury to communicate the committee's disappointment at her late arrival. Jonas said Myeni excused herself as she had to see a doctor over a medical condition.

20 Sep 2016

Myeni: There was a quick process to appoint board committees. It is now going to be a better airline. I want to thank the deputy minister: Your continued support is highly appreciated.

20 Sep 2016

Myeni responds to DA's David Maynier: I never appoint myself. The appointment of the board is a cabinet decision. 

20 Sep 2016

Myeni: Our market share is shifting. It's a policy discussion. 

20 Sep 2016

Myeni: Other successful airlines ... are fully supported by their country.

20 Sep 2016

SAA chair Dudu Myeni: Thank you for understanding that I wasn't well. Either I ate something that was not correct, or there was another reason.

20 Sep 2016

Jonas: We must address governance challenge of SOCs. This issue remains valid. But we also need to address transformation issues - or someone else will in the future and it won't be nice.

20 Sep 2016

Jonas: We must address governance challenge of SOCs. This issue remains valid. But we also need to address transformation issues - or someone else will in the future and it won't be nice.

20 Sep 2016

Jonas: Transformation is a primary project. But we need to know the broad context, we can't run down institutions. Bringing back the airline back to financial liquidity goes with this. If you don't do this, you will kiss goodbye any transformation agenda you may have.

20 Sep 2016

Jonas: Board needs to look at private participation. We board from the private sector. So we already participate with the private sector.

20 Sep 2016

Jonas: Private/partnership debate should occur.

20 Sep 2016

Carrim tells the SAA acting CEO that he needs to stay out of court if he wants to stay out the media.

20 Sep 2016

ANALYSIS: Who's who on the SAA board

20 Sep 2016

Jonas: Board has urgent responsibility to appoint permanent a CEO and CFO.

20 Sep 2016

Jonas: Mr Maynier, we have a board. It almost takes us away from the core business when we harp on how an individual was appointment in consultation with cabinet. Out of collaboration with cabinet, this is the board we have. We are confident we have the necessary skills on board to take airline forward.

20 Sep 2016

Jonas: It's a matter of being pragmatic.

20 Sep 2016

Jonas: One of the problems with SOEs is the overload of objectives. Every time we load another objective to them. The current challenge that SAA faces is financial sustainability. the immediate responsibility of the board is bringing the airline back to solvency. We must desist from what we normally do - confuse the level of objectives. If we fail to bring back the airline to solvency, we will have failed our country.

20 Sep 2016

Carrim: Treasury must table SAA financial report next Friday. Finance deputy minister Mcebisi Jonas has nodded his head in agreement.

20 Sep 2016

Carrim: Board must get to a position so that SAA can return to the Department of Public Enterprises.

20 Sep 2016

Carrim: I agree with EFF's Floyd Shivambu. What is it that this board is going to do differently?

20 Sep 2016

Standing committee on Finance chair Yunus Carrim: A national airline should be a source of pride for SA like a national football team.

20 Sep 2016

EFF's Floyd Shivambu and DA's Natasha Mazzone both told Parliament that SAA chair Dudu Myeni has turned SAA into a soapie.

20 Sep 2016

Finance deputy minister Mcebisi Jonas said earlier that SAA chairperson Dudu Myeni had apologised for being late due to an urgent doctor's appointment regarding her health. She has now arrived almost 2 hours after the important standing committee on finance meeting at Parliament.

20 Sep 2016

The madness of SAA. The chair is debating whether Shivambu's use of the word "madness" regarding SAA is parliamentary.

20 Sep 2016

EFF Floyd Shivambu: We are told that you are a competent board. What are you going to do differently at SAA?

20 Sep 2016

Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan said in Parliament last week that SAA’s loss for 2014 to 2015 would amount to R4.7bn. However, when the airline tabled its preliminary financial results late on September 15, Gordhan pointed out that there had been technical difficulties which could result in material changes to the financials.

On the day when the airline submitted these financial statements - a year overdue and more than 18 months after the end of the previous financial year -  the report didn’t contain the auditor’s report and could still be subject to changes.

Two matters that were expected to have a significant effect on the financial statements are the anti-competitive claims lodged by Nationwide and Comair airlines that are likely to cost SAA more than R1.1bn in penalties. Originally, the airline didn’t make provision for these penalties. 

FULL STORY

20 Sep 2016

Lees: Minister Gordhan said all suspension needed review and now we hear they are going forward with legal proceedings against a suspended executive.

20 Sep 2016

Alf Lees, DA shadow deputy minister of finance: Financial statement shows there is a further R950m loss at SAA.

20 Sep 2016

From SAA presentation: Reputation is the final challenge. Reputation challenges have an adverse commercial impact. An integrated reputation management strategy will be implemented.

20 Sep 2016

From SAA presentation: Leadership instability is the fifth challenge. The instability has created gaps that impact the airline's capacity to implement critical programmes. The new board mandate is to fill key vacancies as soon as possible.

20 Sep 2016

From SAA presentation: The highly vertically integrated corporate structure is the fourth challenge. The evolution of the group structure over times has created a sub-optimal assignment of accountability and co-ordination between units. In mitigation, the LTTS as approved by the board and adtoped by the shareholder, proposed a creation of a holding company corporate structure. This will also be addressed by the proposed merger of SAA and SA Express. This is currency being evaluated by the shareholder.

20 Sep 2016

From SAA presentation: Another challenge is the high unit costs. Due to the competitive nature of the aviation industry, there is a constant reduction in unit cost (cost per available seat kilometre). In mitigation, continuous focus on cost and cost reduction needs to occur.

20 Sep 2016

From SAA presentation: The pressure revenue is another challenge. Yields are under pressure due to over capacity in most markets, new entrants, commoditisation of short-haul travel, dollar based costs and rand based revenue as well as the weakening demand in key African markets whose economies are affected by low commodity prices. In mitigation, SAA needs a constant review and deployment of SAA capacity on profitable sectors. It should optimise the domestic schedule of the different brands. And it should have ongoing revenue and yields management.

20 Sep 2016

From SAA presentation: SAA challenge is its weak capital base. The historical trading and hedge losses, volatility in currency and the increasing cost of debt affected the availability and cost of working capital. In mitigation, SAA needs to consolidate its debt and have a strategic focus to turn the airline cash positive in order to strengthen the balance sheet.

20 Sep 2016

DA MP David Maynier: SAA Dudu Myeni is ground zero. She behaves more like a warlord than a chairperson. When the chair wrote to the committee last year giving reasons why she would not resign, she said she represented the Finance Minister. Can the deputy minister confirm if the minister opposed the re-appointment of Myeni as chairperson? As such, can he explain how it is that she has been re-appointed as chair of the board? He would agree that it is not in the best interests of the airline.  

20 Sep 2016

If South African Airways had not received a R5bn going concern guarantee, it would have posed a systemic risk to all state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in South Africa, Deputy Finance Minister Mcebisi Jonas said on Tuesday. 

READ THE FULL STORY IN THE LINK BELOW

R5bn SAA guarantee staved off risk for all SOEs -Jonas

20 Sep 2016

Nhantsi: Aircraft maintenance is 16% down on budget, but 28% up on Q1 2015.

20 Sep 2016

Nhantsi: Q1 revenue was 10% below budget, but it was 7% higher than Q1 in 2015.

20 Sep 2016

Nhantsi: SAA did achieve 66% of its KPI though.

20 Sep 2016

Nhantsi: KPIs don't reflect a good situation.

20 Sep 2016

Nhantsi: SAA saved R181m in the first quarter of 2016/17.

20 Sep 2016

Nhantsi: Balance sheet of SAA is very weak.

20 Sep 2016

Nhantsi: With the appointment of the new board, we were happy when they told us on Sunday that they will implement a team to overlook the long-term strategy of the airline.

20 Sep 2016

Nhantsi: Ebola affected revenues by R500m in 2014/15.
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