{"id":123085,"date":"2016-05-10T10:24:54","date_gmt":"2016-05-10T08:24:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=123085"},"modified":"2016-05-10T10:25:25","modified_gmt":"2016-05-10T08:25:25","slug":"zumas-friend-tightens-grip-on-saa-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/123085\/zumas-friend-tightens-grip-on-saa-report\/","title":{"rendered":"Zuma’s friend tightens grip on SAA: report"},"content":{"rendered":"

SAA chairperson and close friend of President Jacob Zuma, Dudu Myeni\u00a0says she will run the airline without future guarantees from government, according to BDLive<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

This follows a failed attempt by finance minister Pravin Gordhan to have Myeni removed from her position in the company, which has lost R18 billion over the past decade, and needs a R5 billion guarantee from government to stay afloat.<\/p>\n

Gordhan said that SAA would not receive any guarantees from government until a new board, including a new chairperson, was appointed at the company.<\/p>\n

It was reported in February that Gordhan had given president Jacob Zuma notification of his intent to get rid of Myeni.<\/p>\n

However, last week, Zuma stepped into the matter, shooting down Gordhan’s suggestion, insisting Myeni stay where she is, as well as any other suggestions that a portion of the group be privatised.<\/p>\n

According to the report, Myeni has reasserted her dominance at the company by suspending a top executive with whom she clashed. The executive,\u00a0Thuli Mpshe, is head of human resources, and survived an earlier attempt by Myeni to have her removed.<\/p>\n

The SAA chairperson is closely linked to Zuma, and was speculated<\/a> to be one of the reasons behind the president’s decision to fire former finance minister Nhlanhla Nene.<\/p>\n

At the time of his dismissal, Nene was clamping down on attempts by Myeni to renegotiate a deal with Airbus over the purchasing of planes, which would have enriched a third party company, and cost the airline significantly more money.<\/p>\n

Nene also refused to give South African Airways guarantees and bailout when it was requested by the board.<\/p>\n

Zuma said he would be ‘closer’ to SAA and its operations, now that Treasury has been unable to solve the group’s problems.<\/p>\n

At a meeting between SAA staff and the president on Monday, Myeni said that\u00a0the company still has money, and it\u00a0will continue to operate without government guarantees in the future.<\/p>\n

“Our aircraft are always full,” she was quoted saying.<\/p>\n

More on SAA<\/h3>\n

Why Zuma sacked Nene according to the EFF and DA<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

How much money SAA has lost over the past 10 years<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Gordhan to give SAA\u2019s Myeni the axe?<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SAA chairperson and close friend of President Jacob Zuma, Dudu Myeni says she will run the airline without future guarantees from government, according to BDLive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":85966,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[26,1675],"class_list":["post-123085","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-headline","tag-saa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123085","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123085"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123085\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":123095,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123085\/revisions\/123095"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/85966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}