DA wants court to remove reappointed SAA chair Reappointed chair of South African Airways (SAA) Dudu Myeni should be removed from the post, the Democratic Alliance (DA) announced Sunday, saying that during her tenure the carrier has lurched among crises.The party said it will seek court action to declare that Myeni was an “inappropriate and incapable appointment” to run SAA. Myeni on Friday was named to another one-year term.
“The announcement by Cabinet to re-appoint Ms Myeni undermines the principle of appointing the brightest and the best to serve the state and its entities,” James Selfe, the DA’s federal executive chair, said in an e-mailed statement. Under Myeni, SAA has “leapt from man-made crisis to crisis.”
While she has been in the job, SAA failed to publish two consecutive years of financial reports and recorded apparent losses of more than R4bn in each year, according to the party’s statement. The DA said the state owned company had more than a R1 billion loss in the first quarter of the 2017 financial year. Myeni has put the airline at risk of losing lucrative routes, which will reduce revenue, the party said.s
SAA most recently reported a full-year profit in 2011, and has had seven acting or permanent chief executives in less than four years.
Instability has accelerated in the past year as senior managers departed and it was embroiled in deals ranging from Myeni’s attempts to renege on a leasing contract with Airbus to the appointment of a little-known financial adviser to source funding on its behalf. Both moves were later reversed.
In addition to Myeni, the government on Friday appointed new non-executive board members to end months of wrangling between National Treasury and the carrier.
BLOOMBERG NEWS