Johnathan Paoli
THE National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) has welcomed the decision of the Portfolio Committee on Public Enterprises in referring the Takatso Consortium deal via the Minister of Police Bheki Cele to the Special Investigations Unit (SIU) for further investigation.
The trade union released a statement on Monday and said after the committee’s finding of Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan’s failure to facilitate an open, honest and transparent transaction; the Minister attempted to bully the committee into keeping the deal secret, despite having no justification to do so.
“South African Airways (SAA) is a State-Owned Entity, and every aspect of the deal must be open to the public to scrutinize. Gordhan did not follow proper processes when appointing Takatso as the preferred equity partner for SAA,” NUMSA national spokesperson Phakamile Hlubi-Majola said.
Hlubi-Majola said the union felt vindicated by this decision due to consistently opposing the deal from the beginning and raising the alarm early on to say the process was corrupted and the deal tainted.
She referred to a statement by the committee last month which emphasised the importance of transparency and accountability when it came to financial matters and the need for funding and that it was crucial for the relevant parties to appear before the committee and provide necessary details in order to ensure proper oversight.
In March, Gordhan announced that the deal to sell a stake in SAA to Takatso collapsed, saying a decision was taken to revalue SAA and argued that at the time of the original valuation, the airline was grounded due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
She said the Rand Merchant Bank, which was appointed as a transaction adviser, pulled out of the process early and at the time Takatso was not one of the companies shortlisted to be a strategic equity partner for SAA.
“When you connect the dots it is very clear that the DPE, under the leadership of Minister Pravin Gordhan, was attempting to impose the dodgy Takatso deal onto the public, and they violated proper processes in order to do so,” Hlubi-Majola said.
Takatso minority shareholder representative Gidon Novic, confirmed that he was handpicked by an official of the DPE and they were to receive a whopping 51% ownership of the airline.
Hlubi-Majola said that an amount of R3 billion was promised for SAA by the consortium and now that the deal was no longer going ahead, this left the future of the airline in limbo.
“The state has a responsibility, as the shareholder, to find willing equity partners, or to explore strategic partnerships which can enable the airline to recover, and to be sustainable in the long term. Workers at SAA have suffered enough because of mistakes made by politicians. Our members have paid the highest price in the form of job losses in order to turn this airline around,” the spokesperson said.
She said that SAA management should work with the union, and that it had a common vision to save the airline and ensure its long term survival, and that taxpayers should not foot the bill for over-priced lawyers and frivolous cases which undermined the constitutional right of workers to choose the union of their choice.
SAA’s Derek Hanekom confirmed that the airline has resumed direct flights between Johannesburg and Perth, a significant route for business travelers and expatriates.
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