AS THE WONDERBOOM NATIONAL Airport on the outskirts of Pretoria continues to deteriorate, the Tshwane Metro Municipality has reappointed an aviation security training company – with an expired PSiRA (Private Security Industry Regulation Act) registration certificate – to partially manage the city’s once-proud asset. And without any changes to the service level agreement, the company’s monthly fee was upped by more than 300%, leaving city officials scrambling to find money to pay them.
Disenchanted city officials are refusing to pay the company for a period in which it stayed on-site without a contract, claiming that they will otherwise be held accountable for “unauthorized and wasteful expenditure”. They are also disputing what they claim are inflated invoices rendered by the contractor. Invoices totaling hundreds of thousands of rands have remained unpaid since January.
The metro’s official Airport Services Division, they say, has always been perfectly able and qualified to run Wonderboom but was basically replaced by a private entity, Professional Aviation Services (Pty) Ltd (PAS). The company is known in aviation circles and specializes amongst others in air cargo security, training, and aircraft sales but has never managed an airport before. And it is showing: what was planned to be a so-called turnaround strategy for Wonderboom has failed dismally. The once busy apron is mostly deserted, the tenants are disillusioned and the airport’s organizational structure is in tatters. Crucial positions have been duplicated and even made redundant, resulting in low staff morale; one senior official has committed suicide.
Tenants say they have been waiting for more than a year to get their lease agreements signed, there is seldom aviation fuel available and aircraft have to divert to Brits in North West to fill up.
This story is from the October 2019 edition of Noseweek.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the October 2019 edition of Noseweek.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
Lennie The Liquidator Faces R500,000 Defamation Suit
After losing his cool when his fees were questioned
Panel Beater De Luxe
Danmar Autobody and its erstwhile directors get a serious panel beating in court papers. Corruption and theft are said to have destroyed the firm chaired by Nelson Mandela’s eldest daughter, leaving 200 workers destitute and threatening to kill.
Meet Covid Diarist Ronald Wohlman
Ronald Wohlman – EX SOUTH African copywriter, author, and actor – never dreamt that his lockdown diaries, written on Facebook and followed by people all over the world – would become his “life’s work”.
A Picture Of Peace?
Beware: Appearances can be deceptive
Flogging A (Battery-Driven) Dead Horse
Why plug-in vehicles are not all they’re cracked up to be– and, likely, never will be
Everybody Drinks Corona
I am hesitant to go Into the pub today. Not because it’s illegal, but there is a crème colored 1985 Mercedes 300D parked behind the pine tree. This means the devil is inside; that’s what we call Dr. De Villiers. You don’t know whether you will encounter the good doctor with the charming bedside manner or the violent, bipolar bully. The problem is, most of the time, you can never be sure which it is, so it’s best to always keep a social distance.
Never Take A Hypochondriac To A Pandemic
From Ronald Wohlman’s New York Corona Diary
The money train
Transnet in court battle with liquidators of Gupta-linked audit firm over R57m in ‘corrupt’ payments and invoices
‘He's no pharmaceutical genius, he's a vulture'
Pharma con seeks prison release to ‘help find Covid cure’
Bush school – A memoir
OUR SCHOOL WAS IN THE MIDDLE of the bush, ten miles from the nearest town in the harsh beauty of the Zimbabwean highveld. It started life in World War II as No 26 EFTS Guinea Fowl, a Royal Air Force elementary flying training school and I arrived there in 1954, just seven years after it became an all-white co-ed state boarding school.