EWN reports that Vuyani Jarana, CEO of South African Airways (SAA), has refuted a report that the national carrier is preparing to cut at least one thousand jobs.  

The Sunday Times carried a report over the weekend that the planned retrenchments were part of a turnaround strategy, but Jarana said that was not true:  “There’s no such thing, there’s no board resolution, there have been no submissions.  No thousand jobs on the line, and so if there were jobs on the line, myself and Numsa would be sitting down to discuss this.”  The National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa) represents some of the workers at the airline.  But, Numsa’s spokesperson Phakamile Hlubi said:  “This is a plan to turn the airline around by cutting at least 1,000 workers.  The problems that SAA encountered were as a result of corruption by senior management and executive staff.”  Earlier this month, the Auditor General announced SAA had lost over R5 billion and that the carrier needed a turnaround plan.

• This short report by Mia Lindeque is at EWN
• See too, SAA reportedly planning to spend over R30m on protection of key personnel, at EWN

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