As the South African State Capture Enquiry progresses, former ANC MP, Vytjie Mentor has alleged that Ajay Gupta offered her the position of Minister of Public enterprises if she agreed to cancelSAA's direct Johannesburg-Mumbai route once she assumed the role.
Vytie testified that the move was intended to provide a favourable market for Jet Airways operation on the same route.Testifying at the State Capture Enquiry on Monday, Vytjie said"[Ajay Gupta] said that if I agreed to facilitate that then I could become the minister of public enterprises in the near future. That startled me. He said the president was going to reshuffle his Cabinet in the recent future and minister Barbara Hogan was going to be reshuffled and I could become the minister in her place when she is reshuffled if I agree that once I become the minister I would abolish SAA/India route."
However, contrary to these allegations, former SAA chief commercial officer, Sylvain Bosc, told eTNW that the route cut had been part of the 90-day turnaround action plan, and was rooted in commercial grounds.
“We needed to show results quickly, as the cash drain on SAA was dire. We had been tasked with putting a quick plan into action to reduce losses – with the Ebola crisis ripping through the media, SAA’s revenue was collapsing. The two biggest loss-inducing routes were Beijing and Mumbai, as reported by then-acting SAA CEO Nico Bezuidenhout. So we put through a proposal to shut down these two routes.
"We, however, needed proper approval from the Minister of Finance, as per the Public Sector Management Act, which states that any big change to the size of a business needs to be authorised by the Minister. Cutting a route was seen as a major change. So we applied for the route to be cut, and upon authorisation in January 2015, this was implemented immediately.”
