■ SOUTH AFRICA: Ex SAA boss Vuyisile Kona takes dismissal to court.

Vuyisile Kona, the former interim CEO of South African Airways (SA), has taken his dismissal by South Africa's Public Enterprises Minister Malusi Gigaba to the High Court in Pretoria.

Vuyisile Kona

According to BusinessDay, Mr Kona has applied for a review of Minister Gigaba's March decision to relieve him of his post following "allegations" of him contravening the Public Finance Management Act that were never disclosed, but were speculated to have have involved a murky meeting with well-connected South African businessmen in possible reference to a USD1.08billion (ZAR10billion) fleet procurement tender awarded to Airbus SAS that never came to be.

"Eddie Classen, an attorney representing Mr Kona, said an application to review Mr Gigaba’s decision was filed in the North Gauteng High Court late last month. Mr Gigaba had "not applied his mind" when choosing to fire Mr Kona in March.

Mr Kona had resisted his removal from the board after he was suspended, pending an investigation of decisions he had made as acting CEO, specifically his decision to hire Lufthansa Consulting to help draft a turnaround plan for the airline, which was meant to have been completed by March."

 Source [BusinessDay]

In 2006 Mr. Kona sued SAA for ZAR3.3million after the parastatal allegedly reneged on its pledge to pay him ZAR4.7million as part of a severance package, before burying the hatchet with the carrier.