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Myeni a ‘corporate warlord’ who can save SAA by resigning: DA

SAA board chairperson Dudu Myeni. Picture Credit: Gallo Images
SAA board chairperson Dudu Myeni. Picture Credit: Gallo Images

SAA chairperson Dudu Myeni is a “corporate warlord” and if she had the interests of the airline at heart she would have already resigned‚ the Democratic Alliance’s deputy spokesman on finance‚ Alf Lees‚ told Parliament on Tuesday.

Lees noted that in his in his budget speech in February‚ Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan had laid out three things that he required of SAA‚ one of which was a strengthening of the board‚ but this objective had not been achieved.

“In the interim Dudu Myeni has received public support from President (Jacob) Zuma and Minister Gordhan has been forced to accept a compromise that retains her as board chair. This is a classic ‘devil’s bargain’ where Minister

Gordhan has agreed to retain Dudu Myeni on the SAA board and in return gets something that he really does not want. He gets a new board that is destined never to meet the conditions that he has laid out for it‚” Lees asserted.

This “devils bargain” was not in the interests of the airline‚ nor in the interests of South Africa‚ he said.

“We are dealing with a corporate warlord who takes over as the chief executive and whose only interest is enrichment of herself‚ her family and her close cronies‚” Lees charged.

“Madam Speaker as an example of Dudu Myeni’s corporate warlord campaign of tyranny we have heard from a reliable source what happens at meetings that she chairs.

“She has two armed bodyguards with her at all times‚ even inside closed board meetings! When participants arrive at meetings she instructs her bodyguards to confiscate all laptops‚ iPads and cell phones and these are then removed from the room probably for inspection and checking of contents.

“At the end of a meeting the bodyguards confiscate all notes that anyone has made during the meeting and these notes are handed to Dudu Myeni to keep and to read at her leisure‚” Lees charged.

He added that international ratings agencies would be looking very closely at how state-owned entities such as SAA were handled when they did their assessment for the next round of sovereign credit ratings later this year.

“SAA must be seen to be under control and on a path to recovery‚” he said.

Lees noted that in 2013‚ the year Myeni became board chair‚ the SAA loss was R1.2 billion and that 2014 had seen a loss of R2.59 billion.

“A leaked copy of the 2015 income statement reflects a R4.67 billion loss. In 2016 Dudu Myeni herself has indicated that a loss of R 4.0 billion is likely and leaked information indicates that there was a loss of R 1.3 billion in the first quarter of 2017. The losses just continue to pile up year after year‚” Lees said.

According to the National Treasury‚ SAA was technically insolvent and according to CFO Wolf Meyer in his leaked Airbus memo that ultimately cost him his job‚ SAA was on the brink of liquidation‚ he added.

 

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