The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) has raised concerns over Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan’s alleged secret hiring of SAA’s new board.
The union said it has been reliably informed by a senior source within the government, that Gordhan had removed the SAA board.
The union said it has been informed that the previous board has been replaced with an entirely new board, adding that Gordhan did so without informing the public or the ANC of the new appointments.
Among those said to have been hand-picked by Gordhan include ANC stalwart Derek Hanekom, as the board chairperson, Dumisani Sangweni, Fatima Ghani (who is also on the Eskom board), Mahlubi Mazwai, Wrennelle Stander(former Comair CEO), John Lamola (current interim CEO) and Fundi Sithebe, among others.
Speaking to The Star, Numsa spokesperson Phakamile Hlubi-Majola said the union has been left “amazed by the set of events”.
“We are told that the entire SAA board was removed as of April 14, and replaced with new board members who have already received their appointment letters.
“Numsa has information from a credible source, who shall remain anonymous, that Gordhan has sworn the entire board to secrecy, in order to protect his alleged corruption,” she said.
“We condemn the ANC government and its top leadership for allowing Minister Gordhan to do as he pleases, and that he is allowed to run rogue, and dispense of state-owned entities (SOEs), without following the law. Gordhan never accounts to anyone, not even Parliament or its standing committee on public accounts (Scopa) or the governing party, which deployed him to that role,” Hlubi-Majola said.
Speaking to The Star, spokesperson for the Department of State-Owned Enterprises Richard Mantu said the new board was appointed because it has highly skilled individuals.
“The minister of public enterprises is pleased with the appointment of this highly skilled and diverse interim board of directors for SAA, making a significant step forward in the national carrier’s ongoing transformation. This new board builds on the foundations laid by the previous board and brings together an exceptional team of experts with experience across various fields,” he said.
But Numsa said they are not convinced by this appointment… “As things stand, SAA has been totally undervalued for the sake of enabling this corruption.
“The last SAA audited report ending March 2017, says SAA’s total assets were valued at R14 594 billion. The government has paid off all SAA’s debts, but it is apparently valued at R3 billion. What happened to all of SAA’s assets? Either these assets were disposed of by the business rescue practitioner or by Pravin Gordhan himself,” Hlubi-Majola said.
“What is disturbing is that we are told that the Takatso Consortium appointed its own valuator who valued the assets of the airline at R3 billion. It is highly irregular that an entity, like Takatso, an outsider which is undergoing a process to be an equity partner at SAA has a valuation which is so much lower than what SAA was valued as of 2017’s audited financial statements,” she said.
Numsa said it wanted the ANC to come clean and explain Gordhan’s actions to the public. Attempts to get comment from the governing party were not successful at the time of publication.