The crisis of confidence that is rocking the executive echelons of SAA deepened yesterday as the embattled national carrier came out in defence of acting chief executive Nico Bezuidenhout, even though he has been found to have not completed qualifications that SAA previously portrayed him as having.
In a brief bio on SAA’s annual report of 2012, Bezuidenhout was identified as holding a Bachelor of Commerce degree in Transport Economics and Industrial Psychology, as well as a Master of Business Administration.
However, in an about-face, SAA has admitted that Bezuidenhout had never completed any of the studies towards any of the qualifications in question.
The airline said the ensuing furore over Bezuidenhout’s qualifications was a “distraction”. “In the opinion of the board, the tertiary studies that Mr Bezuidenhout has completed, although incomplete, provides [sic] sufficient grounding whilst his performance track record certainly exceed [sic] that of a number of previous, and highly qualified, airline CEO’s [sic],” SAA said.
“Whilst we are not proposing to compare Mr Bezuidenhout with any of the notable individuals mentioned next, history is littered with examples of extremely successful individuals who did not complete their tertiary degrees, including Michael Dell [CEO Dell Computers], Richard Branson [founder Virgin Atlantic], Henry Ford, Dustin Moskovitz [Facebook co-founder], Larry Ellison [founder of Oracle], Ray Kroc [founder of McDonald’s] to name but a few.”
The ructions at SAA are nothing new, but in recent weeks the extent of the challenges facing the money-losing airline has come into sharp relief after Monwabisi Kalawe was suspended as chief executive almost three weeks ago following clashes with SAA chairwoman Dudu Myeni, whose own qualifications are under question.
Kalawe’s exact status remains in dispute after the Department of Public Enterprises announced on November 11 that his suspension had been lifted, a statement that was subsequently described by Kalawe’s attorney as untrue.
Neither SAA nor the department have provided the reasons why Kalawe was suspended.
Natasha Michael, the DA’s spokeswoman for public enterprises, at the weekend called for SAA to immediately suspend Bezuidenhout, who is also the chief executive of SAA’s low-cost subsidiary Mango.
“The time has come for Minister of Public Enterprises Lynne Brown to once and for all clean up the mess at SAA,” Michael said in a statement. “Mr Bezuidenhout has clearly misled the airline, and therefore his appointment must be set aside.”
According to Michael, the latest developments signify “an embarrassment to the already embattled airline. We need stability and competence at SAA to rescue the failing airline.”
The raft of executives with reportedly missing or dodgy qualifications has shone the spotlight on the deficiencies inherent in the recruiting processes, according to recruitment industry experts.
They said there needed to be an overhaul in how institutions or organisations went about assessing the veracity of the qualifications on candidates curriculum vitae to catch embellishments or lies well ahead of time.