The South African Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has grounded all SA Express flights. CAA says it has suspended the Air Operator Certificate as well as the Certificates of Airworthiness of nine of the 21 aircrafts.
This means that as of today SA Express cannot operate as an airline until it is given the necessary approvals. The CAA says the decision to revoke the airline’s permits comes after an audit which uncovered serious cases of non-compliance that pose serious safety risks.
Meanwhile, Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan says the Intervention Team appointed to support the Executive Team of SA Express has uncovered two incidents of wrongdoing worth millions of rand implicating a Gupta-linked company in just four days in office.
Gordhan says the team has discovered about R5.7 million payment made to Gupta-linked company Trillian without following due processes.
“Our intervention team has found proof of payment to Trillian for R5.7 million of advisory services and capital raising fees. No due process has gone to hire Trillian and it appears no capital was ever raised. There’s also dodgy fuel supply contract that was stopped recently. The contract was for R67 million per month, also no due process investigations for pricing and other things is going on.”
