A virtually unknown music promoter was given a three-year tender to supply SA Express with fuel worth R2.4 billion – but failed to deliver a single drop.<\/p>\n
This is despite a deal already being in place to receive fuel from South African Airways, reports the Sunday Times.<\/p>\n
The deal was said to be orchestrated by two SA Express executives without following any tender process or the knowledge of the airline\u2019s board and management.<\/p>\n
SA Express confirmed that its current fuel supply deal with SAA came at an average cost of R45 million a month, thus the dodgy EML Energy deal meant the already troubled airline paid roughly R800 million more than SAA over the three years.<\/p>\n
The contract is now\u00a0the subject of an investigation.<\/p>\n
Merger and grounding<\/strong><\/p>\n On Thursday (24 May),\u00a0Public Enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan announced that South African Airways (SAA), SA Express and Mango are to be merged.<\/p>\n Speaking on the restructuring, he said that all three airlines currently fly to the same destinations, and that bringing the airlines together and rationalising their routes and important.<\/p>\n However, SA Express also received some particularly troubling news from the South African Civil Aviation Authority (SACAA) on the same day, when it announced that\u00a0it had suspended SA Express\u2019 Air Operator\u2019s Certificate (AoC) as well as the airline\u2019s Aircraft Maintenance Organisation (AMO) approvals.<\/p>\n In addition, the SACAA has also suspended the Certificates of Airworthiness of nine of the 21 aircraft being operated by the airline.<\/p>\n “This effectively means that SA Express can no longer continue to operate as an airline,\u201d the SACAA said in a statement.<\/p>\n To be able to operate, SA Express will have to reapply and be issued with relevant approvals, an air operating certificate, and an approval for the aircraft maintenance organisation, and certificates of airworthiness for the grounded aircraft.<\/p>\n The decision to revoke the airline\u2019s permits comes after the SACAA conducted an audit at the airline and its maintenance organisation in the past several days, which uncovered severe cases of non-compliance that pose serious safety risks.<\/p>\n