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The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) has noted the comments made by SAA’s Chief Risk and Compliance Officer, Vusi Pikoli, who told the Public Enterprises Parliamentary Portfolio Committee that SAA was resuscitating corruption investigations into the airline. Mr. Pikoli was in parliament yesterday and admitted to the portfolio committee that the airline had not attended to these reports in the past and they are now resuscitating the investigations.

We welcome the decision taken by Mr. Pikoli to involve the National Prosecuting Authority in investigating all nine forensic reports. We hope that the NPA will prosecute all those implicated in fraud and corruption in relation to procurement fraud at SAA Technical and loss and theft of aircraft component parts. We also hope that this investigation will extend to board members as well as senior executive management who have been implicated in other reports at SAA.

As NUMSA we have had bitter battles in the past with the SAA board and senior management who refused to follow up on the forensic reports, to the extent that we had to go to court several times to seek court orders to force them to act. We believe that part of the problem is that there are some board members who actively oppose attempts to deal with fraudsters and looters of the airline, and this is why they have been an obstacle in this regard. We have had to go to court several times in order to force the SAA board to implement the findings of both the Open Waters report and the Ernst and Young Forensic reports. This latest announcement by Mr. Pikoli vindicates us and gives us hope that finally, we might begin to deal with corruption at the airline.

For example, in 2017 NUMSA went to court several times in an attempt to force the SAA board to implement the findings of the Open Waters and Ernst and Young forensic report. The Labour court ordered that the investigations must include investigations into senior executives at SAA, and, it also ordered that senior managers implicated in corruption must be suspended from their duties. This was an order which was blatantly ignored by the SAA board.

Instead of implementing the order, they appealed this decision at the South Gauteng High Court and lost. The SAA board has wasted millions of tax payer money fighting NUMSA in court over this issue, instead of simply complying. This is why we remain unconvinced about their commitment to rooting out corruption at the airline. It was only when Vuyani Jarana was appointed as Group CEO that we began to see some commitment in this regard. Unfortunately, he resigned out of frustration because the state refused to back the turnaround strategy which was designed to save the airline and make it profitable.

The Open Waters Forensic Report speaks in detail about rampant corruption at SAA Technical and, it even makes recommendations for certain members of the senior leadership to be placed on suspension for further investigation. In September 2017 we took SAAT to the Labour Court because we wanted to compel the board to begin legal proceedings against senior executives at SAAT, in order to claim damages from senior executives at the airline for the role they played in the irregular sale of Ground Power Units, (GPU’s).

The forensic report confirmed that the sale of the GPU’s was irregular and that proper supply chain management policies were not followed. It also found that the sale exposed SAAT to “undue financial obligations”. All twelve GPU’s were sold to JM Aviation for a price which is far below the market value. It is our firm belief that the sale was induced by corruption or bribery involving senior SAAT employees who may have colluded with executives from JM Aviation to effect the sale. 

Open Water found that SAAT suffered a loss of at least R 5 128 687 and therefore our demand was for those executives named in the report to be held personally liable for the amount. What is painful is that today is that SAAT now leases the very same GPU’s from Swissport at a rate of R550 per hour demonstrating that the transaction was purely motivated by greed and corruption!
 
We repeat the demand for Thandeka Mgoduso, Martin Kingston and Peter Tshisevhe to resign as boar members because they because they are pushing an agenda to privatize the airline.
 
We have always maintained that SAA can be saved and that it can be viable and a profitable business. Unfortunately, there are certain board members who want to see the airline collapse, so that it can be sold off bit by bit to the capitalist cronies, of the governing ANC for their benefit, which in this case are the wealthy Rothschild family. They want SAA to fail so that they can justify privatization.  As members of the working class we must do everything possible to keep the airline from being taken over by the private sector. Only a united working class can #SaveSAA, because if we fail, privatization of the airline will mean massive retrenchments, and much higher costs for the consumer.
 
Aluta continua!
The struggle continues!

Issued by NUMSA