Former SAA Chairperson Dudu Myeni took to the stand at the North Gauteng high court to defend her name against allegations of delinquency.
Former SAA Chairperson Dudu Myeni took to the stand at the North Gauteng high court to defend her name against allegations of delinquency.
Former SAA chairperson Dudu Myeni took to the stand at the North Gauteng High Court on Thursday hoping to clear her name of accusations of delinquency while “overseeing” the collapse of the airline.
She had failed to show up for the proceedings since they began in October 2019, citing financial constraints as prohibiting her from making the trip up to the capital from her home in KwaZulu-Natal.
The case against Myeni has been made by the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (OUTA) and the SAA Pilots Association, who are asking that she be declared a delinquent director following serious mismanagement during her six-year tenure at the company.
A ruling in favour of OUTA declaring her as delinquent in terms of the Companies Act would mean that Myeni could never work as a director of any company again.
OUTA closed their arguments, trying to show the court that Myeni had been directly responsible for putting the company into financial ruin.
They had called up five witnesses, including former SAA acting chief executive Nico Bezuidenhout and former commercial director Sylvain Bosc, with all of them corroborating the allegations that she had squandered several major opportunities to keep the airline afloat.
She began proceedings by telling the court that she applied for the position of SAA chairperson after seeing an advert in a newspaper, denying the allegation that she was appointed due to her relationship with former president Jacob Zuma.
Emirates deal
Asked whether she was to blame for the collapse of a R1.5 billion deal with Emirates, she said that such accusations were baseless.
“I don’t accept the allegation. It is baseless and not true. I am glad to be before the court to state the facts about the Emirates deal.”
Myeni’s lawyer Advocate Nqabayethu Buthelezi asked her about an e-mail that was sent to the board and executives in which Myeni questioned allocating more flights to Emirates and other international carriers when SAA’s national routes were considered unprofitable.
She said that “temporary” flight frequency increases following the 2010 World Cup were going to be taken away from Emirates, and that she was not going to allow foreign airlines to dominate the market.
“Given the urgency of our travel to Dubai, I have forwarded the document to the executives which I prefer not to do,” she said, reading the e-mail to the court.
“Emirates is going to get eight more frequencies. Why are we allowing Emirates to fly around the country instead of allowing them to fly to ORT only? Why are we always saying our local routes aren’t profitable but are allowing outsiders to fly around the country?”
She said she received no response to that e-mail. Asked why she didn’t want to speak directly to the executive of SAA, Myeni said she didn’t want to step on toes.
She denied allegations that she was prone to giving instructions to the executive.
She is also accused of failing to finalise the procurement of five Airbus A330 aircraft, which OUTA charge would have substantially benefited SAA.
This is a developing story
