The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) board is set to decide on the future of its embattled CEO Trevor Abrahams on Friday following the completion of a probe into allegations of conflict of interest against him.
Abrahams was placed on indefinite compulsory leave last November after a Mail & Guardian report revealed that he and his fiancée shared a private events management company that tendered for and benefited from CAA contracts.
The M&G report also revealed how the fiancée’s brother benefited from a CAA contract. Reliable insiders this week told the M&G that the forensic probe has been completed and a report would be tabled before the CAA board on Friday.
The insiders said the auditors have made damning findings against Abrahams and some senior CAA officials. They could not divulge specific findings but they claimed that the board is likely to act against Abrahams on the basis of the findings.
Abrahams was quoted after his suspension as saying he would comment on allegations against him once the investigation had been completed.
The M&G has in the meantime also learned that Abrahams is facing more allegations of a blatant conflict of interest — this time in the Pretoria High Court.
Murad Ismail, a former senior inspector with the CAA who crossed swords with Abrahams in 2000, filed a civil claim against Abrahams, the CAA and its political head, Minister of Transport Abdullah Omar, in August last year.
No date has been set for the hearing. Ismail, now chief executive of Interlink Airlines, claims Abrahams has ‘demonstrated a pattern of corrupt underhand transactionsâ€.
Ismail is asking the court to set aside a number of contracts issued by the CAA on the grounds they were riddled with corruption. He is also asking the court to set aside the CAA’s decision not to renew his pilot examiner’s rating.
Ismail accuses Abrahams of treating Interlink and Calcosa, another applicant for CAA tenders, unfairly. Ismail’s court action is backed by Calcosa.
Ismail’s most sensational allegations are where he accuses Abrahams of having private interests that will be advanced through contracts awarded by the CAA to a private aviation business, the National Airways Corporation (NAC).
Among other services, in 2000 the NAC provided a charter flight to the CAA to transport Abrahams and Omar to Zanzibar, Tanzania. That contract was marred by controversy after the CAA’s auditors questioned the difference between the original quote of R82 000 and the R110 000 that the NAC eventually invoiced.
Ismail claims the following contracts were riddled with irregularities:
- The acquisition of new calibration equipment by the CAA. Calibration is to ensure that the electronic signals, sent by airports to guide aircraft to runways in conditions of low visibility, are correct.
Ismail claims Abrahams wrongfully justified to Omar that new calibration equipment be bought — ultimately at a cost to the taxpayer of $11-million — while South Africa already had a sophisticated system, named Millinear, that could be updated with inexpensive software.
Ismail claims Abrahams sold Millinear at a 10th of its value and without a tender, just to get it out of the way, so that the new calibration equipment could be bought — again without tender — and that the CAA could set up a new calibration service in partnership with the NAC.
In an affidavit Ismail claims: ‘He [Abrahams] intended to set up a contract with a company [the NAC] in which he had a personal or financial interest whether direct or indirect so that that company could charge a phenomenal fee.â€
- Ismail claims that Abrahams justified to Omar that the new calibration service be run with turbo prop King Air aircraft — planes which Ismail alleges are not well suited to the task.
Ismail states: ‘In my respectful submission, the only reason for [Abrahams] suggesting the use of the turbo prop King Airs is that he, in his personal capacity, has acquired turbo prop King Airs.â€
Ismail claims Abrahams, with an NAC executive — who also happens to be on the CAA board — bought two King Air aircraft from the Japanese Navy.
Ismail claims Abrahams intended to award the calibration service tender to the NAC, which would in turn deploy the King Air aircraft owned by Abrahams and the NAC executive. Ismail claims Abrahams ‘stands to earn some R6,6-million per annum for the hire of each King Air aircraft, in his personal capacityâ€.
- Ismail claims that despite a tender having been evaluated in favour of Calcosa relating to the maintenance of the CAA’s jets, Abrahams refused to award the tender to Calcosa.
In an answering affidavit, Abrahams denies each allegation. He also says he did not make any decision not to award tenders.
‘Those tenders were invited by the CAA and tender committees established by the board of the CAA made decisions in regard to them. I was not a member of, and did not participate in the evaluation of the tenders by the tender committee.â€
In June 2000 Abrahams was suspended as CEO of the CAA after being arrested on charges of fraud, corruption, obstruction of justice and contravention of the Aviation Act, all relating to a pilot’s license scam. Ismail was the whistle-blower. Abrahams was reinstated in March 2001 after the state withdrew charges against him.
Ismail was suspended from the CAA for investigating Abrahams. He resigned following a settlement with the CAA.