‘STOP SQUABBLING’ OVER ANDREWS DEAL SAYS MBEKI

SA President Thabo Mbeki on Thursday described an uproar over a multi-million-dollar package for a US executive who headed South African Airways for 22 months as an ”unseemly squabble” and called for it to end. But Mbeki did not take any stand in the row that has divided his cabinet over whether it was fitting for Coleman Andrews to be paid $28-million (33-million euros) — much of it based on performance — and who authorised his contract. Mbeki said the government would only comment further after a meeting next weekend between Public Enterprises Minister Jeff Radebe and the board of Transnet, South Africa’s biggest parastatal and the majority shareholder in SAA. – Reuters