Sorry seems to be the hardest word, especially for embattled national carrier South African Airways which is refusing to apologise to a Cape Town biscuit manufacturer seven years after messing up a tender which cost him millions in lost revenue.
The carrier’s wholly owned food and beverage subsidiary Air Chefs this week confirmed they would not abide by a public protector ruling that an apology is in order. Rather than apologise and set things right, Air Chefs will approach the court to have the protector’s decision set aside.
The news is more of the same for Simon Mantell of Mantelli’s Biscuits, which has been repeatedly snubbed by SAA and Air Chefs since they awarded Mantelli’s a dry snacks tender deal worth about R15m – and then withdrew the award, claiming the entire tender process was a mistake.
Since then, two independent probes have corroborated Mantelli’s claims that SAA’s move was irregular and unfair, and caused him financial harm – in addition to enormous frustration.
Both the national treasury and an independent forensic firm appointed by SAA found that Mantell had in fact been awarded a tender, but Air Chefs refuses to back down.
“Air Chefs is aware of the findings of the public protector in this matter, and after consultation and legal advice the catering entity has taken a decision to take the findings of the public protector on review,” SAA spokesperson Tlali Tlali told Sunday Times Daily last week.
“Air Chefs will accordingly file its papers with the high court by the end of this week, initiating the review application.”
Oupa Segalwe, spokesperson for public protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane, confirmed the protector’s ruling of late January and said the decision was binding “unless set aside by a court of law”.
“Organs of state which disagree with the public protector’s findings and remedial action are not allowed by law to ‘refuse’ and the matter ends there. They must mount a court challenge to have the findings and remedial action set aside,” Segalwe said.
“The public protector received a notice of intention to have the report reviewed in court.”
Segalwe said legal challenges of this kind were uncommon: “This used to be the case before the Nkandla Constitutional Court ruling which clarified that the public protector’s remedial action is binding unless set aside by a court of law. In most cases, those that disagree with the public protector head to court. Very few ignore her.”
In her ruling, the protector said SAA was guilty of improper conduct which had unfairly prejudiced Mantelli’s Biscuits.
“The complainant suffered prejudice in the form of financial loss or expenses incurred in preparing and submitting the bid documents as well as other expenses relating to meetings, travelling, accommodation, exchange of correspondence with SAA, seeking legal opinion and representation in his longstanding dispute with SAA which can be regarded as out-of-pocket expenses,” Mkhwebane said.
Mantell said this week he was not surprised by the stance of SAA and Air Chefs’ board and executive management in the face of the protector’s report.
“SAA has probably blown millions of rands of taxpayers’ money attempting to defend the indefensible by ignoring all the adverse findings and recommended remedial action of an independent investigation, which SAA itself appointed back in 2014,” he said.
