Minister of Public Enterprises Lynne Brown has warned the SAA Board that it needs to finalise the airline’s financial statements “as soon as possible” in order to meet all the requirements of the Annual General Meeting, “which needs to take place by no later than the end of April 2015”. 
She added that the Board would also need to appoint turnaround specialists as soon as possible to set the airline on the path to profitability.
The Department of Public Enterprises and the Department of Finance met with non-executive members of the SAA Board on Monday where matters of “urgency” were outlined.
At the meeting, Minister of Finance Nhlanhla Nene briefed SAA’s Board on the state of the fiscus and government’s view that state owned companies, like SAA, needed to move rapidly to a position in which they could live off their balance sheets. The Board’s main task was to take the airline to a position where it was financially sustainable as soon as possible. 
Meanwhile, uncertainty around SAA’s leadership continues. According to a government press statement, the Board reported in writing to Minister Brown that it had lifted the suspension of CEO Monwabisi Kalawe. However, Kalawe’s legal representative, Mushtaq Parker was quoted in the Business Day: as saying this was “a blatant lie”.
“The suspension was never lifted. Mr Kalawe has had his gate (access) and e-mail blocked more than once and has been told to return his laptop, which I will deliver to SAA’s lawyers on Thursday. There is no suggestion that the suspension is lifted. This is just another indication of how deceitful this board is,” said Parker.
Brown had instructed that Kalawe be reinstated after SAA’s Chairwoman, Dudu Myeni, reportedly suspended the airline’s CEO for unknown reasons. Current CEO of Mango, Nico Bezuidenhout, was been appointed acting CEO of SAA. 
Last month Tourism Update reported that both SAA and SAX failed to table their integrated reports to Parliament on time.
At the time of publication SAA had not confirmed whether Kalawe had been reinstated.