It was when Malusi Gigaba took over as public enterprises minister that governance issues crept in at national carrier SAA.

This was the testimony of former SAA CEO Sizakele Mzimela at the state capture commission on Wednesday.

Mzimela - who is the interim CEO at SA Express and was SAA's CEO between April 2010 and October 2012 - said governance was "very well managed" under Gigaba's predecessor, minister Barbara Hogan.

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But, she said, there was a breakdown in governance at the airline when Gigaba took over in 2010.

Her testimony before the commission on Wednesday corroborated previous testimonies by former ANC MP Vytjie Mentor, former SAA board chair Cheryl Carolus and Hogan herself.

Mzimela said: "The minister [Hogan] ensured that their (DPE's) communication was with the board or the chair of the board. I found that Hogan or the individuals under the ministry would ensure that any communication to the organisation was formal, written communication in all instances.

"We also knew who the individuals were who would interact with the organisation ... Under Gigaba, what we then suddenly found was that we had lots of people from the ministry who had in the past never actually come into the organisation to request information.

"Things were beginning to fall through the cracks in terms of the management of information which, for me, was a breakdown in good governance."