SAA board slammed

The former board of SAA failed to act in the interests of the failed airline when it approved a R1,8 billion multi-year contract with Swissport SA for ground handling services, the Commission into State Capture heard last Friday.

The revelation was part of evidence relating to the auditing of financial statements of the airline which is now in business rescue after years of financial mismanagement of poor governance.
Swissport started rendering services to SAA eight years ago with no contract ever being signed, according to earlier evidence by the witnesses.

The partnership was later extended to run from March 2016 to March 2021, in a process that had been found to be in violation of the Public Finance Management Act.

When asked about the board’s conduct, PwC auditor Pule Mothibe who signed off an SAA audit opinion on September 30, 2016 conceded that it did not act in the best interest of the company when approving the Swissport contract. PwC audited SAA’s books for five years between 2012 and 2017, at times in conjunction with Nkonki Inc. A report on the Swissport contract had flagged that it had not been concluded through competitive bidding and failed to comply with regulations. Evidence leader Kate Hofmeyr wanted Mothibe to explain if the board’s defiance of the instruction by the government was not in breach trust or their fiduciary duty to act in the best interest of SAA. — news24.com.