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The Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) today met the management of South African Airways (SAA) Technical and SAA Chefs. At SAA Technical, Scopa is concerned about financial and resource mismanagement, including payment of invoices without the correct documentation and alleged looting; the loss of skilled staff to competitors; allegations of theft of spare parts; and the poor storage management services provided by KWE, a private company whose contract has been extended continuously for the past 17 years.

Although SAA Chefs has been bad for quite some time, Scopa is happy that there is some improvement. It is out of the red and making a modest profit. A number of areas of concern for the committee include contract management and irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure, but Scopa believes these matters are under control. The committee is happy that there is at least one subsidiary at SAA that is showing signs of life.

Scopa is scheduled to meet with the SAA Board and management tomorrow. All the issues that were discussed today will again be discussed with them so that the committee can find out what it is being done to intervene at SAA Technical. Scopa believes that strategically, it is important to get SAA Technical back on track, as this would solve many of the problems at SAA.

Issued by Parliamentary Communication Services on behalf of the Chairperson of Scopa, Themba Godi