Thank you very much, hon Deputy Chairperson. The response to the question is as follows. According to our information received, both from SA Airways, SAA, as well as from SAA, with respect to SAA the SA Civil Aviation Authority, SACAA, reported, as part of its regular monitoring of the airline industry, a number of findings relating to SAA Technical, SAAT, with SAAT being the component within SAA that is responsible for the maintenance and repairs of the aircraft, not just of SAA and SA Express, SAX, but even the others ... Mango Airlines ... I think even the other ... the South African chapter of British Airways ... they use that.
These findings, inter alia, related to the use of service providers not approved by SACAA. It also included noncompliance by SAAT to the approved aircraft maintenance programmes, as well as SAAT's approved manual of procedures. Due to the significant noncompliance or nonadherence with established aircraft maintenance programmes, SACAA
required those aircraft affected by these findings not to be operated until these findings have been addressed. So, that is significantly the reason why SAA's aircraft was grounded. It was because of what was observed in terms of the nonadherence to the standards of maintenance that is required.
So, if I were to answer the second leg of the question, the reasons that SAA aircraft were grounded are not the same as those of SAX. In the case of SAX there were different reasons altogether.
With regard to the last leg of the question, we couldn't find incompetence on the part of directors in this instance as this was largely due to operational shortcomings. There was therefore no indication of incompetence on the part of the directors because this was a matter that operationally, in terms of ensuring that those who were appointed to do the work did have the necessary accreditation ... but also ... they adhered to the procedures, so to speak. So, those were the reasons, and in the view of the department they were not to do with the directors' competence or otherwise.