Solomon Airlines Board Chairman Austin Holmes says his team needs time to resolve issues surrounding the national flag carrier.
He was responding to a front page report in this paper yesterday authored by Alfred Sasako which said the board has been issued with an ultimatum to resolve the problem or face the axe.
Responding to the threat Mr Holmes told Solomon Star that his board needs time to deal with the problem of Solomon Airlines, and they will inform the media of any press conference when they ready to come out public on the matter.
The chairman explained the mess within the Airline is not of recent years but has been long overdue.
“It is not a one day effort to find a solution to address the issues surrounding this State Owned Enterprise (SOE).”
He assured the public that the board is working on addressing the problem, which they will later inform the public of their approach taken to deal with the matter.
The chairman also revealed the selection of board members is done through public tender, where candidates applied for membership, before they would be assess for their suitability.
“But for me as the chairman, the Minister of Finance and Treasury appointed me, so it is impossible for anyone at the management level to remove me,” Mr Holmes clarified.
Besides that, he said if the airline management did not have the power to appoint board members then how come they could terminate members within the board.
Holmes added the board is working closely with the management of Solomon Airline to ensure the issues of concern are fixed, so that services could be back to normal operations.
He pointed out that blaming people and misquoting them for false statements in the media does not speak well of issues and will not help in any efforts to address the problems we face.
Director of Civil Aviation Authority George Satu yesterday denied having any knowledge of the claims made by Mr Sasako in his news article which appeared on the front page of this paper.
“I was never contacted by Mr Sasako to verify those false claims, instead he quoted a source. I never issued any ultimatum to the board as claimed by Sasako and his source.”
By AATAI JOHN
