South African Airways’ (SAA) CEO has evoked the ire of two opposition parties — with the official opposition Democratic Alliance calling for an SAA board enquiry.
The DA and Inkatha Freedom Party were reacting on Monday to a Sunday Times report that the CEO, Khaya Ngqula, has been running up bills flying to meetings by private helicopter.
DA public enterprises spokesperson Pierre Rabie said in a statement on Monday that, significantly, SAA has not denied the report and instead its spokesperson claimed it is not an issue.
Rabie said: “We believe otherwise … Any public enterprise, but particularly one which has just posted a loss of some R8-billion — or more than South Africa’s entire housing budget — has a responsibility to taxpayers.
“South Africans have a right to know that their money is being spent wisely and not squandered by somebody spending and acting like [French king] Louis XIV.
“The reports of plane and helicopter charters and massive hotel bills sit ill with those of cutbacks and of other staff at the airline being forced to tighten their belts.”
The DA called on Minister of Public Enterprises Alec Erwin to insist that the chairperson and board of SAA investigate “what seems to be unacceptable expenditure and that this be reported back to Parliament at the first opportunity”.
“South Africa has too many people living in desperate circumstances for public money to be wasted in this way.”
IFP spokesperson Hennie Bekker, MP, said: “Ngqula’s conduct serves as a microcosm of the government’s drive for black economic empowerment. It is all about a high-flying life of the oligarchy at the expense of the masses.
“The ANC’s ideas about the corporate code of conduct, as shown by their tolerance of Ngqula, hardly live up to the creed of the man in the street.
“The IFP wishes to point out that the frugality SAA’s CEO strives to impose on his employees and, by proxy, on his passengers, begins at home.”
Ngqula was brought in as SAA’s “Mr Fix-It”, but the Sunday Times said that in just eight months, Nqula has cost taxpayers more than R500 000 in helicopter trips, the chartering of an airplane for a 30-minute flight between France and England, and staggering bills at London’s exclusive Dorchester hotel.
It noted that his perks include a 745 BMW, a bodyguard and a personal chauffeur. — I-Net Bridge