New broom promises to clean up SAA and improve accountability

Before turning around Air Chefs, SAA’s catering arm, the closest its incoming acting group chief executive, Matshela ­Seshibe, had come to managing flight was his time at Daybreak Farms. The reason Seshibe left Daybreak Farms was because of a smear campaign – and he was exonerated in an internal investigation.

Before moving into the agricultural sector, he had gained significant experience in the broader food industry through stints with Unilever, Tiger Brands and Coca-Cola. He later served as the managing director of Albany Bakeries.

None of those points on his CV demonstrates any aviation experience. But there he was, saying “management is turning over every rock to ensure that we expose all areas of waste and potential inefficiencies in the business to drive productivity” in answer to parliamentary portfolio committee questions about the national carrier’s largely negative audit outcomes.

Why? Because the outgoing chief executive, John Lamola, who leaves his position at the end of the month, resigned abruptly on 10 April, citing personal reasons.

Seshibe inherits a notoriously complex beast. SAA is plagued by severe systemic issues, and the Auditor-General has warned that the airline remains a going concern with “material uncertainties”.

For seven consecutive financial years, audited entities in the group submitted financial statements that were described as being of inferior quality. SAA recently declared a moderate profit, but the minister of transport candidly clarified what was a secret open to anyone who can read financial statements for meaning: this profit was primarily driven by the sale of the Heathrow slot, not operational efficiency.

Compounding these issues is a culture where employees sidestep disciplined processes, emboldened by a glaring lack of ­consequence management.

Taking the hot seat

Yet Seshibe’s demeanour under fire from the parliamentary portfolio committee on transport was striking in its contrast to the usual political deflection.

The Auditor-General went first, climbing into the uncomfortable specifics of the disclaimers. This prompted committee members to question what more the SAA team could add to the discussion.

What followed, to the obvious surprise of committee chairperson Selelo Selamolela, was a candid, no-nonsense approach to the airline’s financial and operational recovery. In his opening statements, Seshibe made it clear he was refusing to make excuses for the group’s disastrous audit disclaimers. He laid out the reality: “This presentation is not about disputing the figures. We all accept the outcomes. It’s really about what are we going to do.”

All this while his predecessor’s communications team was expressing its frustration and disappointment at Daily Maverick’s reporting, which they believed unfairly painted Lamola in a bad light, less than 12 hours before the Parliament session.

The SAA board’s rationale for looking internally to fill the sudden leadership vacuum – board chair Sedzani Mudau, despite Lamola’s contrary statements, described his resignation as something “that we did not anticipate” – rests entirely on Seshibe’s track record at Air Chefs.

SAA and SAA Technical remained stagnant, with disclaimed audit outcomes, but Air Chefs broke the mould. It did not receive a fully clean audit, but it was the only entity in the group to improve its standing, moving from a disclaimed audit outcome to a qualified opinion. The Auditor-General directly attributed this upward trajectory to the appointment of “strong leadership that actually changed the culture of the organisation”.

A blueprint for success

Seshibe was appointed Air Chefs chief executive in 2024. Under his tenure, the group scaled its ­operations to produce 11,000 meals a day at five plants, achieving a world-class on-time performance exceeding 98%.

The turnaround was so palpable that after a site visit, members of the portfolio committee singled out the subsidiary as a model for state-owned enterprises and a refreshing change from the damning verdict given to the rest of the SAA business and its ­“culture of impunity”.

One member said Air Chefs “is a case study of what SOEs can do in a comparative field”; another enthusiastically praised the positive organisational culture, visible from the moment a receptionist greets visitors.

Seshibe’s appointment does not come without its challenges, though. On the eve of his appearance before Parliament, SAA released a statement to address recycled media reports regarding those fabricated allegations from his time at Daybreak Farms.

The airline clarified that the historic matter “was subject to due process at the time. It was fully considered and conclusively resolved, with the allegations found to be without merit.” The board said it had conducted extensive due diligence and remained “confident in his leadership, integrity and ability to guide the organisation through its next phase”. Again, in contrast with a situation where Minister of Transport Barbara Creecy was cleared by the Public Protector only last week of any wrongdoing in the appointment of the outgoing CEO.

Seshibe’s immediate challenge is translating his micro-success at Air Chefs to the macro level of the national carrier. But his posture suggests that he can bear the load of a sharp pivot towards basic corporate governance. He has made it clear that internal controls are “non-negotiable” and that management will finally be held accountable for doing their jobs.

Legacy cases of irregular expenditure remain on the books (and investigations into wrongdoing are continuing throughout the organisation), but Seshibe has decisively shifted the airline’s focus towards prevention, highlighted by the establishment of a dedicated loss control function.

It’s a rare position for SAA to be in clear air with a light tailwind. But the flight path is still subject to whatever turbulence hits across the next quarter. There will be another audit for the current financial year that all involved said should be done in July, and this will be the truest test of the new captain. DM

This story first appeared in our weekly DM168 newspaper, available countrywide for R35.