Business partner of CEO Khaya Ngqula’s wife lands lucrative airline deal.
The government will investigate South African Airways and its CEO, Khaya Ngqula, after receiving a litany of complaints from the SA Transport and Allied Workers’ Union, one of the biggest trade unions in the country.
SA Airways boss Khaya Ngqula with his wife Mbali Gasa during their traditional wedding at Rhode village, near King Williams Town
A dossier containing “serious allegations” against the loss-making national carrier and its senior management was submitted to minister of public enterprises Brigitte Mabandla by the union, which represents some 10000 ground and cabin crew.
This comes as SAA prepares to clinch a catering deal estimated at R3.5-billion with a consortium involving Vusi Sithole, a business partner of Ngqula and his wife, former beauty queen Mbali Gasa.
The department confirmed it had received the dossier, but said it would “communicate directly” with the union once it had “reviewed” it.
Yesterday, Satawu general secretary Randall Howard said the union had held a meeting with the department and an agreement had been reached that the minister’s office would investigate the allegations against SAA and its senior management.
“The allegations are indeed very serious,” he said.
Asked about specific allegations in the dossier, Howard declined to go into detail.
“The minister has agreed to investigate and we’ve given her the benefit of the doubt to go and investigate everything and clarify everything we’ve put on the table. And, of course, we expect her to be decisive in dealing with the matter.”
The airline introduced vigorous cost-cutting since 2007, but for years it has suffered losses that required the government to plough taxpayers’ money into it — at least R2.8-billion in the past two years.
As part of the cost-cutting exercise, it decided to sell off its catering division, Air Chefs.
SAA confirmed this week that French company Servair is the preferred bidder to supply about 180000 weekly in-flight meals on SAA’s domestic routes.
Servair’s empowerment partner is Auberge Michel, a five-star French restaurant in Sandton that is jointly owned by Sithole and Michel Morand.
The Sunday Times has established that Sithole sponsored the inaugural Africa Open Golf Challenge, the rights to which belong to Ngqula’s wife, to the tune of R1.2-million. Gasa is also a director in one of his companies, Netlife Golf Consortium.
The catering deal is the latest in a string of controversies that have dogged the airline chief. When Ngqula’s contract ends next year, it is estimated he will have amassed more than R20-million in wages and bonuses at the airline.
Since his appointment in October 2004, Ngqula has been accused of:
- Running up a R500000 bill for helicopter trips to meetings in Gauteng that were within driving distance of each other between December 2004 and March 2005;
- Short-changed taxpayers by R110-million in 2005 after rejecting a higher bid to lease three of SAA’s Airbus A340-300s to Indian airline Jet Airways. Two weeks before negotiations for the lease agreement started, Ngqula and the owner of Jet Airways, billionaire Naresh Goyal, holidayed together at a luxury resort in Goa;
- Abandoned his post in July 2005, at the height of the most crippling strike in the history of SAA, to attend a junket with his wife at a luxury hotel in Mpumalanga; and
- Pocketed an additional R68750 monthly retention bonus on top of his annual R5.3-million salary.
Yesterday, Sithole denied that his association with Gasa had landed his consortium the contract.
“The tendering process was open and it has taken us and our French partners two years to secure this deal,” he said, adding that he had declared all his business interests and followed all requirements.
Asked about his business interests with Gasa, Sithole said: “I hardly ever see her.”
SAA has also denied any irregularities in the tender process and said that an independent auditing firm had confirmed this. Spokesman Robyn Chalmers said Ngqula’s business interests were declared at the beginning of each year, in line with policy.
“In the relatively small South African business environment, and particularly the black economic empowerment sector, many businessmen and their wives have indirect links with one another,” she said.
Servair spokesman Céline Prenez declined to say how they had selected Auberge Michel as their partner in the multibillion-rand deal.
Gasa and her husband founded the Africa Open Golf Challenge in 2006. Sithole’s wholly owned company, Nestlife Assurance, sponsored the inaugural event held at the Fish River Sun last year. — pilisos@sundaytimes.co.za
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