Pretoria - Former Public enterprises minister, Malusi Gigaba, and his former “henchman”, Siyabonga Mahlangu, have been fingered by the state capture commission as some of the people whose interferences and decisions led to the decline of the once mighty South African Airways (SAA).
At the former state-owned airline, the Zondo commission said that they found there was a steady decline in the quality and effectiveness of the governance from 2012 onwards.
This poor quality and ineffectiveness developed over the period that Duduzile Myeni was the chairperson of SAA and her co-board member, Yakhe Kwinana, who was the chairperson of SAAT (South African Airways Technical).
As the chair of the board, she would then lead the purging of those “implicated” employees. Myeni, according to the commission, denied the allegations, claiming that it was believing gossip.
Read the full report: Judicial Commission of Inquiry into State Capture Report: Part 1
The commission said Myeni’s push for 30 percent quota for black businesses was based on a twisted interpretation of a state of the nation address by former president Jacob Zuma, who actually said the quota should only be applied where deemed necessary - not in every sphere.
In spite of the decline in corporate governance at the two SOEs, Zondo found that auditing firms PwC and Nkonki gave these institutions clean audits from 2012 to 2016.
“These are matters that should be further investigated both by Sars and by the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants,” Justice Zondo said.
Justice Zondo has also ordered NPA to recover lost funds from Myeni and others including companies that benefited from the illegal deals at SAA, SAAT and SAX (South African Express).
Regarding the dubious tenders allocated to the now-defunct New Age newspaper which was owned by the Gupta family, Justice Zondo has recommended that the NPA should criminally prosecute former Transnet boss Brian Molefe for fraud and contravention of the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA).
At Sars, he recommended that the government must establish an agency to fight against corruption. Justice Zondo also ordered the government to set up a national charter against corruption.
Political Bureau