Call for dept head to pay over ‘race baiting’ tweets

Pilots at South African Airways (SAA) were locked in discussion last night on how to respond to what they
believe was a series of “race baiting” tweets on Monday by department of public enterprises director-general Kgathatso Tlhakudi which accused the pilots of wanting to “maintain a self-enriching apartheid era labour agreement”.

SA Airways’ Pilots Association (Saapa) spokesperson Grant Back said it was regrettable that a government official had resorted to the level of race-baiting and blatantly false accusations.

The Democratic Alliance’s Ghaleb Cachalia, shadow minister of public enterprises, demanded Tlhakudi’s immediate suspension in an earlier tweet.

“He needs to be hauled over the coals and retract the statement immediately,” Cachalia said.

He said government has shown its hand in terms of pushing a fabricated agenda to pave the way for the return of the albatross, SAA.

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“It is a justification of the government’s own form of racism and job reservation.”

Michael Morris, of the Institute of Race Relations, said: “This is a cynical exploitation of race. It is unfortunate, imprecise and meaningless. Race is being of fered up as an excuse for a shareholder’s inability to negotiate in good faith.”

Morris added that Tlhakhudi’s actions were hugely divisive at a time when South Africa should be pulling together.

“A pilot is a pilot, no matter what hue,” he added.

However, last October Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan emphasised that the new SAA would only have black pilots.

“Experience has no colour,” said Cachalia, “but inexperience is shadowed by disaster.”

An SAA pilot said anonymously that when the airline was operating, each pilot took responsibility for around 28 000 travellers’ lives every year.

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“This certainly has all the markings of election year rhetoric,” added Morris.

“The government has once again exposed its chronic weakness in always defaulting to race. You cannot blame race for the mess that was made at SAA, with evidence of corruption and corrupt individuals quite abundant.

“It’s bizarre to blame white people for this.”

Pilot’s association spokesperson Back said the association “and our pilots will not be used as scapegoats for the department-led failure of SAA”.

“This is similar to what Dudu Myeni tried unsuccessfully in defence of her delinquent actions and the state capture of SAA’s procurement.”

– news@citizen.co.za