MEC pays tribute to sports journo
GAUTENG MEC for Sport, Arts, Culture and Recreation Faith Mazibuko has paid tribute to the late sports journalist and television analyst Mzimasi “Mzi” Mgebisa.
Mzi died on Tuesday at Charlotte Maxeke Academic Hospital in Johannesburg after kidney failure.
“Mzimasi Mgebisa played a significant role in educating our nation about sport, especially the football industry,” said Mazibuko.
He will be buried in Johannesburg on September 8. – ANA
SOUTH African Express CEO Victor Xaba was forced to concede that the loss-making airline did not take firm enough action on irregular spending, after Public Enterprises Minister Lynne Brown reiterated that it needed a cash injection from the State.
“Let’s say in all fairness not enough was done in terms of consequence management. I just want to concede that, “Xaba told Parliament’s watchdog Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa).
He was answering questions on the Auditor-General’s findings that the lowcost state carrier had incurred R35 million in irregular and wasteful expenditure in 2015/16, and said the company had chosen to conduct one “over-arching” investigation rather than pursue individual cases.
MPs asked Xaba why so far only one employee had been fired and two faced action when 216 cases of wrongdoing had been opened. The DA’s Tim Breuteseth bluntly told Xaba he should expect the public to be dismayed that millions were misspent and there was no apparent haste to punish those responsible and recover the money, adding: “When are you resigning? Because you are not good at it.”
Brown briefly appeared at the committee before heading to a cabinet meeting, and said like SAA, SA Express needed recapitalisation. She urged the National Treasury “to help us” in that regard.
Unaudited financial results for 2016/17 show the airline lost R234m after making a slim profit of R16m the year before.
Chief financial officer Mark Shelley told Scopa the airline’s problems in paying its creditors in time persisted, despite receiving further government guarantees of R467m. “There is one root cause and that is liquidity. We would pay as and when funds were available... We still have liquidity issues and we still have issues of late payment.”
Asked why the guarantees did not resolve the problem, he said that it was extended specifically to enable the airline to pay “long-outstanding creditors”. – ANA