ATTITUDE FOR ALTITUDE: GUY LEITCH
I have just read Cynthia Stimpel’s book, Hijackers on Board – about her having blown the whistle about Dudu Myeni and her cronies. It makes depressing reading, but what is clear is that 2015 was the year it really all went down the drain. As the SAA Group Treasurer Stimpel sheds new light on two infamous episodes on the airline’s history. THE APPALLING DUDU MYENI had become Chairperson in 2012 and by 2015 had deployed her cronies into key positions of power. From the Zondo Commission and Stimpel’s book, it’s evident that the Acting Chief Financial Officer Phumeza Nhantsi was complicit in two big attempts to loot the airline – to hijack the R15 billion Airbus deal and the plan to use consultants to consolidate SAA’s R15 billion debt while sucking off R300m in fees, despite SAA having a more than capable treasury function to do the job.
honest and competent management it was able to limit its losses to around about one billion rand per year.
dazed and confused in the corridors of Air ways Pa r k
As a South African state-owned airline, SAA was never going to be profitable as it carries a development burden – to provide job opportunities and to fly South Africa’s flag on uneconomic routes. Yet, with a modicum of
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One of Myeni’s key objectives was the complete racial transformation of the airline’s management. It soon became clear that the experienced and skilled white managers were no longer welcome, and there was a rush of scarce skills for the exits.
The problems of skill loss and the promotion of incompetents has already been thoroughly covered. It is sufficient to say that the enforcement of the policy created a vast cadre of ignorant and toxic management. As I wrote as far back as 2008, the new appointees ‘wandered dazed and confused in the corridors of Airways Park’. Because the newly empowered could not do their jobs, they resorted to political turf
