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It was always going to be a heated meeting – the leadership of the embattled South African Airways was appearing before Parliament’s finance committee to account for the airline’s performance in the last quarter of the 2016/17 financial year which ended on March 31.
But Dudu Myeni was the only SAA board member who arrived for the meeting, accompanied by Phumeza Nhantsi who was appointed chief financial officer last month, and another official acting in acting CEO Musa Zwane’s absence.
Members of Parliament were outraged. A lot has been written about Myeni in the media in recent weeks, and some MPs were hoping her colleagues on the board would give clarity on those issues. A debate ensued on whether to continue with the meeting or not, considering that what Myeni says may be contested by her board colleagues at a later stage.
A majority of ANC MPs felt the meeting could not continue until more board members were present. It seemed like a logical decision, until the one disagreeing ANC MP, Peace Mabe, who is also new in the finance committee, accused her comrades of trying to excite the opposition. She wanted Myeni to be allowed a chance to make a presentation.
Mabe lashed out at committee chairperson Yunus Carrim, who inferred that Mabe – because she was new in the committee and had not attended many of its meetings – could be overruled.
“What has that got to do with what I’m about to say now. You don’t want me to participate in this committee. It seems as if you don’t want me to participate in this committee. Why?” she began.
Wagging a finger at Carrim, she continued: “You are ill-treating me and the reasons why I don’t attend these meetings is because you came to my desk in the National Assembly and all the things you said to me, they killed my confidence in coming to participate in this meeting.”
Mabe, who was by now holding back tears, continued: “You cannot treat me like this … I am here today, I want to make my contributions and you tell me that I differ with others. There is no study group decision on this issue.”
She warned that ANC MPs can’t want “to excite the opposition” and be negative, and added that Myeni and Nhantsi should be heard by the committee.
It became clear there was more to the argument, but neither Mabe nor Carrim went into the details.
Carrim however revealed that there had been several attempts every day since last Wednesday to stop the meeting from going ahead. These involved some officials in the Treasury and some people within SAA via the Treasury, he said.
Carrim said the reasons had been several and ranged from “let’s postpone it without any substantial explanation to “let’s postpone it because the quarter has not ended [the quarter ended in March]” to ‘questions asked by MPs relate to strategy and we are in the process of finalising” to officials saying they are worried about going to Parliament three days before the extension of loans by the lenders.
This may jeopardise the negotiations, the officials had argued.
Carrim noted that MPs wanted the meeting to be postponed because some felt Myeni no longer represented the SAA baord, while others wanted to protect her from being “rigorously critiqued here”.
He warned: “Those who want the meeting to be postponed, you may be falling on the lap of the section that didn’t want this meeting to take place. There was an attempt to stop this meeting taking place. Those of you who are asking for it not to go ahead, unintended or consciously are serving that purpose,” said Carrim.
The toing and froing took a solid 100 minutes until the DA’s Alf Lees reminded the meeting of the crisis facing SAA. Lees wanted the meeting to continue, even if it is at a later stage this week.
“This airline is on the verge of bankruptcy. It’s our information that they battled to pay salaries in May and will battle to pay salaries in June. Whether it’s true or not, I don’t know but I can’t have the opportunity to check on that.
“What I do know is that there is R9 billion worth of loans that they have to either roll over or repay by the 30th of June. If those loans are not rolled over, this airline will be bankrupt, it will close down. This has huge implications not only for the airline, but for our economy and for thousands of employees,” he said.
“We can’t simply put this matter off until September. This is not about Dudu Myeni, this is about the future of this airline which is about to close down if they don’t get the money to continue,” added Lees.
The official acting in Zwane’s place said they were engaging “with the financials to rollover the loans and to rearrange the loans… engagement with all the financials is on-going and the discussions are at as sensitive stage”.
He said SAA has been able to pay salaries as and when they became due even when there are financial pressures.
“There has not been any risk of salaries not being paid,” he added. The meeting was postponed to August without any discussion of the quarterly report.
