LINK DENIED: SAA says CEO suspension unrelated to DA’s latest Daybreak Foods findings

The DA wrote to President Cyril Ramaphosa asking for a full SIU investigation into Daybreak Foods on the same day the SAA board suspended its former acting CEO. We asked SAA about it, and it says there is no link.

When Daily Maverick asked SAA whether Matshela Seshibe’s special leave was a reaction to the DA’s revelations in the ongoing Daybreak Foods saga – which implicated the airline’s former acting CEO – the national carrier was quick with the comment:

“No, it’s not true. This is pure speculation. And SAA is handling the matter internally and is sticking to and standing by [the] statement issued on the matter.”

According to the leaked Fundudzi Forensic Services report obtained by the Democratic Alliance, Daybreak Foods paid R26.8-million to Blue Apple Tree Brand Consultancy and Design for “Integrated Brand Marketing Communications”. This expenditure occurred despite there being no approved budget and no agreed contract amount.

The bulk of this money was paid across four highly questionable invoices billed between May and August 2022, immediately following Matshela Seshibe’s appointment as Daybreak CEO in May 2022:

Fundudzi found that Blue Apple Tree charged a flat rate of R1,800 per hour per resource. However, the approved contract rate of R1,800 was meant to be a combined rate split across four resources (with the brand specialist component capped at R800 per hour).

The report concluded that Blue Apple Tree had inflated its invoices by R12.87-million (including VAT) and recommended that this sum be recovered from the provider.

When these invoices were first submitted, Daybreak’s Chief Financial Officer flagged them. She requested proof of work, noting that she struggled to establish whether any services had actually been rendered. Instead of providing proof, Blue Apple Tree referred her to the Company Secretary, Kgabo Mapotse, claiming the board was already comfortable with the work.

The forensic report records that the investigation remained incomplete because then-CEO Seshibe instructed investigators in December 2022 to suspend aspects of their probe.

Following Seshibe's departure and suspension, investigators were briefly allowed to resume their work, but were subsequently instructed by Daybreak director Richard Manzini to finalise and close the report without completing the outstanding investigative loops.

The revelation of the Fundudzi report makes SAA’s April 2026 due diligence look incredibly compromised. The SAA board had publicly assured South Africans that the historic allegations against Seshibe were fabricated.

However, the leaked forensic files paint a picture that the Group CEO they had appointed to lead SAA’s multibillion-rand turnaround had allegedly shut down a corruption probe into R12-million of inflated invoices, including vanity drone videos celebrating his own CEO induction.

If you were into conspiracy theories, by preemptively suspending Seshibe on 14 August, Sedzani Mudau’s board successfully avoided being blindsided on 17 August, allowing them to frame the suspension as a “decisive” move in support of “integrity and leadership”.