Banele Ginindza
IN A DECISIVE move that industry insiders said had been percolating for a while, Public Enterprises Minister Lynne Brown yesterday let go of six SAA non-executive board members and introduced aviation specialist Dr John Tambi and chartered accountant Anthony Dixon to the revamped board.
Sources close to the matter indicated earlier that Brown had been looking to replace the board with industry specialists who would have the expertise to help turn SAA around.
The issues came to a head yesterday with two special general meetings at which Brown firstly accepted the resignation of six members of the board and, at the second one, announced the appointment of Tambi and Dixon.
“It is well known that SAA has been a loss-making airline for the past few years and my intervention is aimed at stabilising the situation,” the minister said in a statement.
She said the cabinet approved the retention of board members Dudu Myeni as chairwoman, and Yakhe Kwinana.
It is unclear which six board members have left, but the rest of the board had included Nonhlanhla Kubeka, Raisibe Lepule, Carol Roskruge, Rajesh Naithani, Andile Mabizela, Bongisizwe Mpondo, Andile Khumalo, and Lindi Nkosi-Thomas.
“I would be failing if I did not refer to the resignations of the board members. In accepting their resignations, I wish to convey my gratitude to those members for their time and effort spent in trying to address the challenges facing the airline. I wish them well in their future endeavours,” Brown said.
The reshuffle comes as tensions between the board and Brown reached boiling point, with the meetings yesterday slated for a showdown.
“One of the items on the agenda is the removal of some board members,” a government spokesman Colin Cruywagen said on Wednesday.
Four non-executive directors had already resigned from the carrier last week ahead of the special general meetings.
Brown said on October 17 that she and Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene would lead a team focusing on the future of SAA, with the aim of getting the company to survive off its own balance sheet.
The fallout between the minister and the board is understood to stem from factional fights between two opposing groups – one aligned to chairwoman Myeni, and one against her. They have been fighting over procurement and operational issues since 2012.
It also brings Brown into the fray as being squarely on the side of the politically connected Myeni.
While Brown, who came into office in May, said from the start she intended to review the boards of all state-owned companies under her jurisdiction, her decision to consider the removal of seven of the nine non-executives, with little more than a week’s notice, rather than to reconstitute the board as a whole, has caused waves within SAA.
SAA is awaiting a financial support guarantee from the Treasury to continue as a going concern and has delayed the publication of earnings for the 12 months to March.
According to Brown’s statement, Tambi has extensive experience in project management, planning, engineering with specialisation in the transport sector and is expected to assist the board to achieve the desired outcomes of the turn-around strategy and the consolidation of the airline’s assets.
Dixon has experience in corporate affairs, auditing and accounting.