After President John F Kennedy was assassinated, Malcolm X famously said that the assassination was a case of the “chickens coming home to roost,” adding that “chickens coming home to roost never did make me sad; they’ve always made me glad.” In other words, he was implying that since the white man had used violence so often and so easily in America (especially against black Americans), it was just cosmic balance that the President would become a victim of violence.
Well, the chickens are coming home to roost big time with regard to the on-going political manipulation and abuse of the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) by various political factions within the ANC. When a perception takes hold that the NPA will prosecute some and avoid prosecuting others solely on the basis of their political connections or on the basis of whether they belong to the faction associated with the incumbent President or not, the credibility of that institution is fatally compromised.
When newspapers then report allegations of flagrant political interference in decisions to prosecute politically connected politicians (as the Mail & Guardian again did on Friday), few well-informed people will read such reports with scepticism. After all, we know that the NPA has often made decisions in the past based on political rather on legal considerations (including in the case relating to the prosecution of President Zuma and then later, the dropping of charges against President Zuma).
It was exactly to prevent this sorry state of affairs, that the drafters of our Constitution included a provision in section 179(4) of the Constitution which states that: “National legislation must ensure that the prosecuting authority exercises its functions without fear, favour or prejudice”. Of course, politicians, including then President Thabo Mbeki and now President Jacob Zuma, do not like to focus on this section of the Constitution, instead pointing to section 179(6) of the Constitution to justify direct interference in the decisions of the NPA. This section states that: “The cabinet member responsible for the administration of justice must exercise final responsibility over the prosecuting authority”.
What the politicians choose to ignore is the following.
The Constitutional Court, in the First Certification Judgment, confirmed that despite this strange provision about the Minister having to exercise final responsibility for the NPA, the Constitution created an independent body in the following terms:
[Section] 179(4) provides that the national legislation must ensure that the prosecuting authority exercises its functions without fear, favour or prejudice. There is accordingly a constitutional guarantee of independence, and any legislation or executive action inconsistent therewith would be subject to constitutional control by the courts.
The politicians also conveniently ignore the judgment of the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA), in which it dealt with the need for the NPA to be independent while also taking cognisance of the need for the Minister to take final responsibility for the NPA in the following terms:
[T]he Constitution on the one hand vests the prosecutorial responsibility in the NPA while, on the other, it provides that the Minister must exercise final responsibility over it. These provisions may appear to conflict but, as the Namibian Supreme Court held in relation to comparable provisions in its Constitution, they are not incompatible. It held (I am using terms that conform with our Constitution) that although the Minister may not instruct the NPA to prosecute or to decline to prosecute or to terminate a pending prosecution, the Minister is entitled to be kept informed in respect of all prosecutions initiated or to be initiated which might arouse public interest or involve important aspects of legal or prosecutorial authority.
That is why the NPA Act requires members of the prosecuting authority to serve “impartially” and exercise, carry out or perform their powers, duties and functions “in good faith and without fear, favour or prejudice” and subject only to the Constitution and the law. The Act further provides that no one may interfere “improperly” with the NPA in the performance of its duties and functions (in section 32(1)(b) of the Act).
The Act confirms that the manner in which the Minister exercises final responsibility over the NPA is by obliging the NDPP, at the request of the Minister, to furnish the latter with information or a report with regard to any case and to provide the Minister with reasons for any decision taken. The Minister can ask for information, but cannot give any instructions or make any requests regarding the prosecution or non-prosecution of anybody (unless, of course, the Minister is intent on committing a criminal offence by “improperly” trying to influence the NPA).
Of course, problems around political interference in the work of the NPA and the corrupt influence of political loyalties on NPA decisions arise not only when the Minister tries to issue illegal and criminal instructions to the NPA (as former Minister Bridget Mbandla did when she sent a letter – drafted by Menzi Simelane – to former head of the NPA, Vusi Pikoli to stop the arrest of a crook who also happened to be the Police Commissioner ), but also when members in leadership positions inside the NPA stop acting in good faith and instead make decisions based purely on their own political loyalties and self-interest.
When they are willing to do the bidding of their political masters without being instructed to do so, or when they improperly follow the hints or instructions of the Minister or other member of the relevant political faction inside the ANC, they destroy the credibility of the NPA and directly undermine the Rule of Law by creating a situation in which some criminals are above the law because of the political protection they enjoy.
The allegations in the Mail & Guardian regarding the interference in the “Three Amigo’s” case as well as the allegations tha5t the disciplinary charges were brought against prosecutor Glynnis Breytenbach for what appears to be her rather enthusiastic pursuit of the company owned by President Zuma’s financial benefactors, the Gupta’s, or because of her pursuit of that bastion of probity and honesty, Richard Mdluli, illustrate the dangers of the political “capturing of the NPA rather well.
Even if all these allegations are false, given the past abuse of the NPA many people will think them credible or even true. They will think it is true because the chickens have truly come home to roost for the politically much abused and subverted NPA. Who on earth is ever going to believe the protestations of the NPA that there is no political interference when there is such strong proof of on-going political interference at the NPA? I know, I won’t.
It is ironic that President Zuma, who complained bitterly about the abuse of the NPA by the Thabo Mbeki faction when he was facing corruption charges has overseen the further erosion of trust in this institution. I guess it was bad when the other guys were doing it, but now that he is in charge the principles are slightly different to suite the politics. But I guess he will only realise how the chickens have ccome home to roost if he loses his bid for another term as ANC and South African President and again faces the possibility of having to explain to a judge why he took a bribe from Schabir Shaik.
Source: Constitutionally Speaking
Showing posts with label Kumar Gupta. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kumar Gupta. Show all posts
Monday, July 9, 2012
Friday, February 10, 2012
Shock and ore: Dirt flies in Sishen battle
The three-year battle between Imperial Crown Trading and Kumba Iron Ore for a multibillion-rand stake in Sishen is getting dirtier and dirtier.
An alleged assassination attempt has driven a witness to go public with allegations of collusion between ICT and the department of mineral resources.
A legal consultant who claims that he survived an assassination attempt on a lonely stretch of the N7 highway between Cape Town and Springbok last month has come to the Mail & Guardian with an incredible story. Gawie Hendriksz says he knows how politically connected mining company Imperial Crown Trading 289 (ICT) acquired a multibillion-rand stake in the Sishen mine in the Northern Cape during the long weekend of May 2009.
ICT provisionally acquired a 21.4% stake in Sishen when it beat Anglo American’s subsidiary Kumba Iron Ore to the rights for what both companies believed was a vacant stake in one of the world’s largest opencast iron ore mines.
ICT and Kumba have spent millions in court sparring over the allocation of the 21.4% stake, and have laid criminal charges against one another. Hendriksz, who since July 2011 has been under contract to a risk consultancy acting for Kumba, makes the following key allegations:
ICT co-founder and chief executive Phemelo Sehunelo paid a bribe of R250 000 to Charles Lerumo, the department of mineral resources’s Northern Cape assistant director of mineral laws to facilitate the acceptance of ICT’s application;
Lerumo kept R150 000 and passed R100 000 on to Thozama Basi, the department’s Northern Cape assistant director of social and labour plans;
Basi, who took possession of Kumba’s application on April 30 2009, made copies of documents such as title deeds from this application during the subsequent long weekend. She then handed these copies to Sehunelo; and
ICT’s application was incomplete and unsigned at the time it was purportedly captured on the department’s computer systems on May 4 2009. Lerumo saw to the capturing of ICT’s application on May 4, even though the ICT application was in fact only signed on May 5 that year. This is significant, as Kumba’s application was also registered on May 4 and legislation promotes a “first past the post” approach to competing applications. Basi chose not to respond to detailed allegations put to her by the M&G. Lerumo would not even entertain the questions.
Responding on behalf of Sehunelo and ICT, attorney Ronnie Mendelow described Hendriksz as “nothing but a scurrilous liar seeking to peddle ‘information’ (in actual fact disinformation) to the highest bidder”. Mendelow said that during a taped interview with ICT’s lawyers on November 2 2010, Hendriksz had offered a different version, in which Kumba had in fact bribed the department of mineral resources officials. Mendelow said: “Suffice it to say that these allegations were all without any foundation whatsoever, and that the allegations regarding paying off of advocate Charlie Lerumo by our client, advocate Sehunelo are completely false and without any foundation whatsoever.”
Mendelow said that on his own version, Hendriksz had attempted to “peddle his information” to Kumba and ArcelorMittal. “Mr Gawie Hendriksz’s alleged desire — to make the facts known before somebody succeeds in killing him, is a conjured up story,” Mendelow said. Arcelor potentially lost the 21.4% stake in Sishen it previously held by failing to convert its rights in terms of new legislation by the end of April 2009.Before the M&G contacted Mendelow, Hendriksz had disclosed his interaction with ICT to the newspaper, claiming that he had “played along” with the latter as part of his own investigation.
Hendriksz had also disclosed his interactions with both Kumba and Arcelor to the M&G. The DMR also dismissed Hendriksz as “an information peddler”, claiming he had previously approached the department to offer his assistance in the matter. The department rejected his approach. While Hendriksz’s allegations have not been tested in court, he has made a detailed affidavit to the Hawks investigator probing ICT’s conduct.
No assessment of his credibility is complete without considering his role in the successful investigation of another case involving the Kimberley department of mineral resources office—the so-called Saltworks case. In this matter, Hendriksz was hired by Jalie du Toit, owner of Saamwerk Soutwerke, which had been on the brink of acquiring a mining right from the department to extract salt from a pan near Upington in 2006 when a rival mining company, Suid-Afrikaanse Soutwerke (SA Soutwerke), produced what it claimed was a valid permit to mine the same saltpan.
Du Toit’s suspicions were raised because two well-connected Northern Cape politicians—ANC regional chairperson John Block and Upington mayor Gift van Staden—had become directors of SA Soutwerke four months earlier. Du Toit hired Hendriksz to investigate. Hendriksz made it his business to find out how mineral rights were awarded, and by whom, in the office of the department of mineral resources in Kimberley. “In the course of my Soutwerke investigation, I was in the department office in Kimberley every second or third day until they got used to me,” he told the M&G. By May 2009, when the 21.4% stake in Sishen became vacant, sparking the scramble between Kumba and ICT, Hendriksz said his investigations into SA Soutwerke’s permit had “intensified”. “I was regularly attending at the Kimberley office of the department and was meeting several officials on a regular basis ... [deputy director] Hennie Jansen van Rensburg and [assistant director of mineral laws] Charles Lerumo in particular. “I sought not only to obtain information from them, but also, unknown to them, to cross-check information provided by one of them with the other. I avoided consulting them jointly,” Hendriksz said. In May 2009, Jansen Van Rensburg was temporarily heading the regional office in Kimberley because his superior, Pieter Swart, had taken leave. On May 18, Hendriksz said Jansen Van Rensburg called him into his office and said: “Here is a file on my table. I’ve got exactly the same case and problem with Kumba and ICT like in your matter with SA Soutwerke. The same what happened on your side. The permit is fraudulent, with high-up cover-up.”
At another meeting a few days later, on May 21, Jansen van Rensburg told Hendriksz what he meant by “high up”. “He said to me: ‘There is also involvement on the political level. There’s someone called Jagdish Parekh who also has a lot of influence [in ICT]. You’ll see, sooner or later—like John Block [with SA Soutwerke]—he’ll be brought in as a partner for ICT.”
ICT lawyer Mendelow, responding on behalf of Parekh, said Parekh “had nothing whatsoever to do with ICT in May 2009 and thereafter when our client’s application for the prospecting right was granted. He first became involved in ICT well after the prospecting right had been granted.”
Hendriksz said that at another meeting on June 10, Jansen Van Rensburg told him that his superior, “Swart, had instructed him, during the course of April 2009, that he [Jansen Van Rensburg] was to take over as acting regional manager of the Northern Cape regional office for the month of May 2009.
“Jansen Van Rensburg was to prepare for the lodging of a prospecting right application by ICT during this period, and was to ensure that this application was accepted, regardless of any irregularities with it,” he added. The instruction had apparently come from one of Swart’s superiors in Pretoria. Swart denied this, saying: “I’ve never given Mr Van Rensburg the instruction as set out in your letter. My holiday arrangements [in which Jansen Van Rensburg would act] were made a considerable time before the end of April 2009 [when the Sishen applications were lodged].” As Jansen van Rensburg has since died, Hendriksz’s recollection of their encounters cannot be confirmed.
In the interim, the salt mine dispute Hendriksz had been investigating reached its conclusion, providing an independent test of the credibility of both Hendriksz and Swart. The case, heard in September 2009 in the Northern Cape High Court, turned on allegations that the mining permit on which SA Soutwerke relied—produced by the ANC’s Block at a meeting with the DMR—was a forgery. Before the hearing department of mineral resources officials—including Swart—gave sworn statements supporting Block’s SA Soutwerke and suggesting the fake permit was legitimate. By the time Hendriksz came to testify, Swart’s statement had been mysteriously withdrawn and Hendriksz’s evidence of manipulation and double-dealing by the department was hardly challenged in cross-examination.
In his ruling Judge Hennie Lacock found that SA Soutwerke’s permit was a fake. The judge made no mention of Hendriksz, but Jasper Tredoux, Saamwerk Soutwerke’s advocate, said: “Gawie was a truthful witness — But his greatest importance was behind the scenes. “He helped unravel everything that happened in the department of minerals, who did what with regard to the mining licence applications.”
His employer in this matter, Du Toit (owner of Saamwerk Soutwerke) said: “In the court case there was a lot of bullshit on the department’s side. I stood alone; nobody in the department would help me understand where the other permit came from. But Gawie helped me. “Without Gawie’s investigation I could not have taken this case to court.”
The relationships Hendriksz built with department of mineral resources officials during the Saltworks case, particularly with Lerumo, were crucial to the alleged disclosures they made to him about ICT. Said Hendriksz: “Lerumo was the department’s legal advocate, so I was working a lot with him [on the Soutwerke matter]. I slowly built up trust with him —”
In mid-2010, the department charged Lerumo with misconduct and regional manager Swart summoned him to a departmental disciplinary inquiry. On June 10, Hendriksz said that Lerumo had approached him for advice. He had suggested to Lerumo that he remind Swart of his own alleged conduct in the ICT matter. According to Hendriksz, the charges were then withdrawn. In February 2011, when the department revived misconduct charges against Lerumo, he and Hendriksz met again—and on this occasion Hendriksz decided to record the conversation. He asked ex-policeman Andreas Steenkamp to sit in a car outside the Protea Hotel in Kimberley, where the two men met, tap their exchange using a remote listening device and transcribe it in a notebook.
The alleged conversation took place on February 21 in the hotel reception area. Steenkamp refused to discuss the encounter with the M&G, but confirmed that he had given a sworn affidavit to the police, the content of which is unknown. The M&G has seen a copy of Steenkamp’s purported shorthand notes from this encounter. At face value, they support Hendriksz’s claim that Lerumo admitted receiving money from ICT’s Sehunelo and that he also implicated department of mineral resources official Basi.
The M&G understands that Swart eventually proceeded with disciplinary action against Lerumo, who was found guilty. The charges included an allegation that Lerumo accepted R5 000 from a mining consultant to speed up the processing of their applications, though it is not know if this particular charge was proved. Lerumo is still employed at the department in Kimberley. Hendriksz said his attempts to persuade Lerumo to approach the police and seek indemnity from prosecution had not borne fruit.
In addition to developing ties with Jansen van Rensburg and Lerumo, the third—and possibly most controversial—aspect of Hendriksz’s investigation was his decision to approach all five parties in the dispute, the police, the department of mineral resources, Kumba, ArcelorMittal and ICT, to offer information. According to Hendriksz, he first approached Colonel Tobias Marais of the South African Police Service, who had investigated SA Soutwerke, to tell the Hawks that if they wanted to know “exactly what happened about ICT” they should get in touch with him. The Hawks did not respond.
Hendriksz then approached Kumba’s attorney, Robert Botha, who told him that “Kumba does not buy information”. Hendriksz said he responded that he did not want to sell anything, but that Kumba could take him on as a consultant. Botha’s reluctance gave Hendriksz “a feeling that they had already burnt their fingers somehow”. Hendriksz said that because “ArcelorMittal and Kumba were the only two companies that had nothing to do with ICT’s fraud and bribery of DMR personnel”, he approached Arcelor next. Hendriksz claims he made contact with a senior Arcelor executive, who told him that they were not worried about ICT. Only later did he learn that Arcelor had been negotiating to buy ICT.
Finally, Hendriksz said he was contacted by Lerumo, who wanted him to meet ICT chief executive Sehunelo. Lerumo set up the appointment, and the two met at ICT’s Kimberley offices on October 25 2010. “During this meeting, Sehunelo said that he understood that I was someone who knew a lot about what had transpired regarding ICT’s application over the 30 April to 4 May 2009 weekend. I replied that I did. “He then said that I could perhaps assist ICT by deposing an affidavit that would support ICT’s case. “Sehunelo explained that I would have to depose an affidavit in which I would falsely state that I was aware of collaboration between Kumba and officials in the department which resulted in department officials tampering with the ICT application by inserting documents from the Kumba application. This was to make it appear that the ICT application had been submitted using copied documents.”
Hendriksz undertook to work with ICT, saying: “I wanted to play along with them, to understand who the key role players are behind the curtains there. I wanted to establish what political roleplayers with influence were ... in ICT.” Saamwerk Soutwerke’s lawyer Tredoux supported his explanation, saying: “Sometimes you have to go under cover and disguise your intentions in order to uncover the truth.”
The following week ICT flew Hendriksz from Cape Town to Johannesburg, where he met ICT attorney Mendelow and advocate Edmund Wessels in the latter’s Sandton chambers. The M&G has seen a record of the 1Time return flight booking made by Sehunelo’s personal assistant Sharifa Ferris. At the Johannesburg meeting Hendriksz said he had “said what Sehunelo asked me to say”. Mendelow confirmed the meeting, and gave the M&G access to a transcript in which Hendriksz indeed repeated the claim that Kumba paid a former official from the department to meddle with ICT’s application. In a transcript of the recording which the M&G has seen, Hendriksz promised ICT further information about who took bribes in the department from Kumba in return for employment as a consultant. He also offered to testify for ICT in court. Wessels expressed interest in Hendriksz’s information, but the interview did not end with a definitive undertaking by either party.
In their response, Mendelow and Hendriksz agreed that both parties had lost interest in each other soon after this meeting. Mendelow said that he believed Hendriksz was an information-peddler, while Hendriksz said: “I would not have consented to being so engaged, given my knowledge of the fraud perpetrated by ICT.” In July 2011, a consultancy called Risk Analysis, retained by Kumba’s legal team to identify evidence or witnesses which could assist the company’s litigation strategy in the ICT matter, made contact with Hendriksz.
Risk Analysis’s Mungo Soggot said: “We approached Mr Hendriksz ... after learning that, on account of his work in the Saamwerk matter, he was uniquely placed to provide an insight into what took place at the DMR Kimberley office in April 2009. “His brief was to help us identify other potential witnesses to the impropriety he described. In particular, his brief was to explore whether Charles Lerumo—with whom he had a close relationship—could become a witness. It was never intended at this stage that he would be a witness himself,” said Soggott, a former M&G journalist who left the newspaper in 2002.
Hendriksz entered into a contract with Risk Analysis. Ultimately, Kumba and its legal advisers introduced him to the Hawks. Hendriksz said his ultimate goal was to stamp out corruption in the department, which is “damaging the mining industry”.
Under 2004 mining legislation, companies were required to convert mining rights under old law by applying for “new order” rights by May 1 2009.
By the deadline, iron-ore miner Kumba, had applied to convert its 78.6% stake in the Sishen iron mine. But steel manufacturer ArcelorMittal, with the remaining 21.4%, had not. Kumba and an obscure shelf company, Imperial Crown Trading 289 (ICT), raced to acquire the rights to ArcelorMittal’s 21.4% stake, estimated to be worth R800-billion over the mine’s remaining life.
But May 1—a Friday—was a public holiday.
On Monday May 4, Kumba and Imperial’s applications for the vacant Sishen stake were recorded on the department’s system in Kimberley. ICT applied for a prospecting right, Kumba for a mining right. Controversy now surrounds both applications.
ICT claims Kumba acted deceitfully by handing in its application early and asking department officials to lodge it on May 4.
Kumba claims that ICT’s application was not ready on May 4, but that officials recorded ICT’s application as lodged on that day—even though ICT’s application trickled in over succeeding days.
Both companies also accuse one another of bribing officials to tamper with their rival’s application.
In November 2009, the department handed ICT a prospecting right on the basis that both applications had arrived on May 4, but that ICT had superior BEE credentials.
One of ICT’s founding directors was Prudence “Gugu” Mtshali, reportedly Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe’s romantic partner. Motlanthe was South Africa’s caretaker president in May 2009 when ICT applied for the stake.
In March 2010 ICT handed over a 50% stake to JIC Mining, represented on its board by Jagdish Parekh. JIC is controlled by the Gupta brothers, benefactors of the Zuma family.
In August 2010 Arcelor offered to buy out Imperial and incorporate its directors into a new consortium that included President Jacob Zuma’s son Duduzane and Parekh, making them instant billionaires.
But the buy-out was never consummated. Instead, Kumba and Arcelor won a High Court judgment in December 2011 that mineral rights over a single area are indivisible and that Arcelor’s old order 21.4% stake is fully Kumba’s.
ICT are now out in the cold, although it finalised its appeal against Zondo’s ruling last week.
In July 2011, the Hawks raided ICT’s office and the department in Kimberley for evidence of fraud when the applications were made.
ICT has challenged the legality of the raids, and the seized materials are currently out of the Hawks’ reach.
Source: Mail & Guardian
An alleged assassination attempt has driven a witness to go public with allegations of collusion between ICT and the department of mineral resources.
A legal consultant who claims that he survived an assassination attempt on a lonely stretch of the N7 highway between Cape Town and Springbok last month has come to the Mail & Guardian with an incredible story. Gawie Hendriksz says he knows how politically connected mining company Imperial Crown Trading 289 (ICT) acquired a multibillion-rand stake in the Sishen mine in the Northern Cape during the long weekend of May 2009.
ICT provisionally acquired a 21.4% stake in Sishen when it beat Anglo American’s subsidiary Kumba Iron Ore to the rights for what both companies believed was a vacant stake in one of the world’s largest opencast iron ore mines.
ICT and Kumba have spent millions in court sparring over the allocation of the 21.4% stake, and have laid criminal charges against one another. Hendriksz, who since July 2011 has been under contract to a risk consultancy acting for Kumba, makes the following key allegations:
ICT co-founder and chief executive Phemelo Sehunelo paid a bribe of R250 000 to Charles Lerumo, the department of mineral resources’s Northern Cape assistant director of mineral laws to facilitate the acceptance of ICT’s application;
Lerumo kept R150 000 and passed R100 000 on to Thozama Basi, the department’s Northern Cape assistant director of social and labour plans;
Basi, who took possession of Kumba’s application on April 30 2009, made copies of documents such as title deeds from this application during the subsequent long weekend. She then handed these copies to Sehunelo; and
ICT’s application was incomplete and unsigned at the time it was purportedly captured on the department’s computer systems on May 4 2009. Lerumo saw to the capturing of ICT’s application on May 4, even though the ICT application was in fact only signed on May 5 that year. This is significant, as Kumba’s application was also registered on May 4 and legislation promotes a “first past the post” approach to competing applications. Basi chose not to respond to detailed allegations put to her by the M&G. Lerumo would not even entertain the questions.
Responding on behalf of Sehunelo and ICT, attorney Ronnie Mendelow described Hendriksz as “nothing but a scurrilous liar seeking to peddle ‘information’ (in actual fact disinformation) to the highest bidder”. Mendelow said that during a taped interview with ICT’s lawyers on November 2 2010, Hendriksz had offered a different version, in which Kumba had in fact bribed the department of mineral resources officials. Mendelow said: “Suffice it to say that these allegations were all without any foundation whatsoever, and that the allegations regarding paying off of advocate Charlie Lerumo by our client, advocate Sehunelo are completely false and without any foundation whatsoever.”
Mendelow said that on his own version, Hendriksz had attempted to “peddle his information” to Kumba and ArcelorMittal. “Mr Gawie Hendriksz’s alleged desire — to make the facts known before somebody succeeds in killing him, is a conjured up story,” Mendelow said. Arcelor potentially lost the 21.4% stake in Sishen it previously held by failing to convert its rights in terms of new legislation by the end of April 2009.Before the M&G contacted Mendelow, Hendriksz had disclosed his interaction with ICT to the newspaper, claiming that he had “played along” with the latter as part of his own investigation.
Hendriksz had also disclosed his interactions with both Kumba and Arcelor to the M&G. The DMR also dismissed Hendriksz as “an information peddler”, claiming he had previously approached the department to offer his assistance in the matter. The department rejected his approach. While Hendriksz’s allegations have not been tested in court, he has made a detailed affidavit to the Hawks investigator probing ICT’s conduct.
No assessment of his credibility is complete without considering his role in the successful investigation of another case involving the Kimberley department of mineral resources office—the so-called Saltworks case. In this matter, Hendriksz was hired by Jalie du Toit, owner of Saamwerk Soutwerke, which had been on the brink of acquiring a mining right from the department to extract salt from a pan near Upington in 2006 when a rival mining company, Suid-Afrikaanse Soutwerke (SA Soutwerke), produced what it claimed was a valid permit to mine the same saltpan.
Du Toit’s suspicions were raised because two well-connected Northern Cape politicians—ANC regional chairperson John Block and Upington mayor Gift van Staden—had become directors of SA Soutwerke four months earlier. Du Toit hired Hendriksz to investigate. Hendriksz made it his business to find out how mineral rights were awarded, and by whom, in the office of the department of mineral resources in Kimberley. “In the course of my Soutwerke investigation, I was in the department office in Kimberley every second or third day until they got used to me,” he told the M&G. By May 2009, when the 21.4% stake in Sishen became vacant, sparking the scramble between Kumba and ICT, Hendriksz said his investigations into SA Soutwerke’s permit had “intensified”. “I was regularly attending at the Kimberley office of the department and was meeting several officials on a regular basis ... [deputy director] Hennie Jansen van Rensburg and [assistant director of mineral laws] Charles Lerumo in particular. “I sought not only to obtain information from them, but also, unknown to them, to cross-check information provided by one of them with the other. I avoided consulting them jointly,” Hendriksz said. In May 2009, Jansen Van Rensburg was temporarily heading the regional office in Kimberley because his superior, Pieter Swart, had taken leave. On May 18, Hendriksz said Jansen Van Rensburg called him into his office and said: “Here is a file on my table. I’ve got exactly the same case and problem with Kumba and ICT like in your matter with SA Soutwerke. The same what happened on your side. The permit is fraudulent, with high-up cover-up.”
At another meeting a few days later, on May 21, Jansen van Rensburg told Hendriksz what he meant by “high up”. “He said to me: ‘There is also involvement on the political level. There’s someone called Jagdish Parekh who also has a lot of influence [in ICT]. You’ll see, sooner or later—like John Block [with SA Soutwerke]—he’ll be brought in as a partner for ICT.”
ICT lawyer Mendelow, responding on behalf of Parekh, said Parekh “had nothing whatsoever to do with ICT in May 2009 and thereafter when our client’s application for the prospecting right was granted. He first became involved in ICT well after the prospecting right had been granted.”
Hendriksz said that at another meeting on June 10, Jansen Van Rensburg told him that his superior, “Swart, had instructed him, during the course of April 2009, that he [Jansen Van Rensburg] was to take over as acting regional manager of the Northern Cape regional office for the month of May 2009.
“Jansen Van Rensburg was to prepare for the lodging of a prospecting right application by ICT during this period, and was to ensure that this application was accepted, regardless of any irregularities with it,” he added. The instruction had apparently come from one of Swart’s superiors in Pretoria. Swart denied this, saying: “I’ve never given Mr Van Rensburg the instruction as set out in your letter. My holiday arrangements [in which Jansen Van Rensburg would act] were made a considerable time before the end of April 2009 [when the Sishen applications were lodged].” As Jansen van Rensburg has since died, Hendriksz’s recollection of their encounters cannot be confirmed.
In the interim, the salt mine dispute Hendriksz had been investigating reached its conclusion, providing an independent test of the credibility of both Hendriksz and Swart. The case, heard in September 2009 in the Northern Cape High Court, turned on allegations that the mining permit on which SA Soutwerke relied—produced by the ANC’s Block at a meeting with the DMR—was a forgery. Before the hearing department of mineral resources officials—including Swart—gave sworn statements supporting Block’s SA Soutwerke and suggesting the fake permit was legitimate. By the time Hendriksz came to testify, Swart’s statement had been mysteriously withdrawn and Hendriksz’s evidence of manipulation and double-dealing by the department was hardly challenged in cross-examination.
In his ruling Judge Hennie Lacock found that SA Soutwerke’s permit was a fake. The judge made no mention of Hendriksz, but Jasper Tredoux, Saamwerk Soutwerke’s advocate, said: “Gawie was a truthful witness — But his greatest importance was behind the scenes. “He helped unravel everything that happened in the department of minerals, who did what with regard to the mining licence applications.”
His employer in this matter, Du Toit (owner of Saamwerk Soutwerke) said: “In the court case there was a lot of bullshit on the department’s side. I stood alone; nobody in the department would help me understand where the other permit came from. But Gawie helped me. “Without Gawie’s investigation I could not have taken this case to court.”
The relationships Hendriksz built with department of mineral resources officials during the Saltworks case, particularly with Lerumo, were crucial to the alleged disclosures they made to him about ICT. Said Hendriksz: “Lerumo was the department’s legal advocate, so I was working a lot with him [on the Soutwerke matter]. I slowly built up trust with him —”
In mid-2010, the department charged Lerumo with misconduct and regional manager Swart summoned him to a departmental disciplinary inquiry. On June 10, Hendriksz said that Lerumo had approached him for advice. He had suggested to Lerumo that he remind Swart of his own alleged conduct in the ICT matter. According to Hendriksz, the charges were then withdrawn. In February 2011, when the department revived misconduct charges against Lerumo, he and Hendriksz met again—and on this occasion Hendriksz decided to record the conversation. He asked ex-policeman Andreas Steenkamp to sit in a car outside the Protea Hotel in Kimberley, where the two men met, tap their exchange using a remote listening device and transcribe it in a notebook.
The alleged conversation took place on February 21 in the hotel reception area. Steenkamp refused to discuss the encounter with the M&G, but confirmed that he had given a sworn affidavit to the police, the content of which is unknown. The M&G has seen a copy of Steenkamp’s purported shorthand notes from this encounter. At face value, they support Hendriksz’s claim that Lerumo admitted receiving money from ICT’s Sehunelo and that he also implicated department of mineral resources official Basi.
The M&G understands that Swart eventually proceeded with disciplinary action against Lerumo, who was found guilty. The charges included an allegation that Lerumo accepted R5 000 from a mining consultant to speed up the processing of their applications, though it is not know if this particular charge was proved. Lerumo is still employed at the department in Kimberley. Hendriksz said his attempts to persuade Lerumo to approach the police and seek indemnity from prosecution had not borne fruit.
In addition to developing ties with Jansen van Rensburg and Lerumo, the third—and possibly most controversial—aspect of Hendriksz’s investigation was his decision to approach all five parties in the dispute, the police, the department of mineral resources, Kumba, ArcelorMittal and ICT, to offer information. According to Hendriksz, he first approached Colonel Tobias Marais of the South African Police Service, who had investigated SA Soutwerke, to tell the Hawks that if they wanted to know “exactly what happened about ICT” they should get in touch with him. The Hawks did not respond.
Hendriksz then approached Kumba’s attorney, Robert Botha, who told him that “Kumba does not buy information”. Hendriksz said he responded that he did not want to sell anything, but that Kumba could take him on as a consultant. Botha’s reluctance gave Hendriksz “a feeling that they had already burnt their fingers somehow”. Hendriksz said that because “ArcelorMittal and Kumba were the only two companies that had nothing to do with ICT’s fraud and bribery of DMR personnel”, he approached Arcelor next. Hendriksz claims he made contact with a senior Arcelor executive, who told him that they were not worried about ICT. Only later did he learn that Arcelor had been negotiating to buy ICT.
Finally, Hendriksz said he was contacted by Lerumo, who wanted him to meet ICT chief executive Sehunelo. Lerumo set up the appointment, and the two met at ICT’s Kimberley offices on October 25 2010. “During this meeting, Sehunelo said that he understood that I was someone who knew a lot about what had transpired regarding ICT’s application over the 30 April to 4 May 2009 weekend. I replied that I did. “He then said that I could perhaps assist ICT by deposing an affidavit that would support ICT’s case. “Sehunelo explained that I would have to depose an affidavit in which I would falsely state that I was aware of collaboration between Kumba and officials in the department which resulted in department officials tampering with the ICT application by inserting documents from the Kumba application. This was to make it appear that the ICT application had been submitted using copied documents.”
Hendriksz undertook to work with ICT, saying: “I wanted to play along with them, to understand who the key role players are behind the curtains there. I wanted to establish what political roleplayers with influence were ... in ICT.” Saamwerk Soutwerke’s lawyer Tredoux supported his explanation, saying: “Sometimes you have to go under cover and disguise your intentions in order to uncover the truth.”
The following week ICT flew Hendriksz from Cape Town to Johannesburg, where he met ICT attorney Mendelow and advocate Edmund Wessels in the latter’s Sandton chambers. The M&G has seen a record of the 1Time return flight booking made by Sehunelo’s personal assistant Sharifa Ferris. At the Johannesburg meeting Hendriksz said he had “said what Sehunelo asked me to say”. Mendelow confirmed the meeting, and gave the M&G access to a transcript in which Hendriksz indeed repeated the claim that Kumba paid a former official from the department to meddle with ICT’s application. In a transcript of the recording which the M&G has seen, Hendriksz promised ICT further information about who took bribes in the department from Kumba in return for employment as a consultant. He also offered to testify for ICT in court. Wessels expressed interest in Hendriksz’s information, but the interview did not end with a definitive undertaking by either party.
In their response, Mendelow and Hendriksz agreed that both parties had lost interest in each other soon after this meeting. Mendelow said that he believed Hendriksz was an information-peddler, while Hendriksz said: “I would not have consented to being so engaged, given my knowledge of the fraud perpetrated by ICT.” In July 2011, a consultancy called Risk Analysis, retained by Kumba’s legal team to identify evidence or witnesses which could assist the company’s litigation strategy in the ICT matter, made contact with Hendriksz.
Risk Analysis’s Mungo Soggot said: “We approached Mr Hendriksz ... after learning that, on account of his work in the Saamwerk matter, he was uniquely placed to provide an insight into what took place at the DMR Kimberley office in April 2009. “His brief was to help us identify other potential witnesses to the impropriety he described. In particular, his brief was to explore whether Charles Lerumo—with whom he had a close relationship—could become a witness. It was never intended at this stage that he would be a witness himself,” said Soggott, a former M&G journalist who left the newspaper in 2002.
Hendriksz entered into a contract with Risk Analysis. Ultimately, Kumba and its legal advisers introduced him to the Hawks. Hendriksz said his ultimate goal was to stamp out corruption in the department, which is “damaging the mining industry”.
Under 2004 mining legislation, companies were required to convert mining rights under old law by applying for “new order” rights by May 1 2009.
By the deadline, iron-ore miner Kumba, had applied to convert its 78.6% stake in the Sishen iron mine. But steel manufacturer ArcelorMittal, with the remaining 21.4%, had not. Kumba and an obscure shelf company, Imperial Crown Trading 289 (ICT), raced to acquire the rights to ArcelorMittal’s 21.4% stake, estimated to be worth R800-billion over the mine’s remaining life.
But May 1—a Friday—was a public holiday.
On Monday May 4, Kumba and Imperial’s applications for the vacant Sishen stake were recorded on the department’s system in Kimberley. ICT applied for a prospecting right, Kumba for a mining right. Controversy now surrounds both applications.
ICT claims Kumba acted deceitfully by handing in its application early and asking department officials to lodge it on May 4.
Kumba claims that ICT’s application was not ready on May 4, but that officials recorded ICT’s application as lodged on that day—even though ICT’s application trickled in over succeeding days.
Both companies also accuse one another of bribing officials to tamper with their rival’s application.
In November 2009, the department handed ICT a prospecting right on the basis that both applications had arrived on May 4, but that ICT had superior BEE credentials.
One of ICT’s founding directors was Prudence “Gugu” Mtshali, reportedly Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe’s romantic partner. Motlanthe was South Africa’s caretaker president in May 2009 when ICT applied for the stake.
In March 2010 ICT handed over a 50% stake to JIC Mining, represented on its board by Jagdish Parekh. JIC is controlled by the Gupta brothers, benefactors of the Zuma family.
In August 2010 Arcelor offered to buy out Imperial and incorporate its directors into a new consortium that included President Jacob Zuma’s son Duduzane and Parekh, making them instant billionaires.
But the buy-out was never consummated. Instead, Kumba and Arcelor won a High Court judgment in December 2011 that mineral rights over a single area are indivisible and that Arcelor’s old order 21.4% stake is fully Kumba’s.
ICT are now out in the cold, although it finalised its appeal against Zondo’s ruling last week.
In July 2011, the Hawks raided ICT’s office and the department in Kimberley for evidence of fraud when the applications were made.
ICT has challenged the legality of the raids, and the seized materials are currently out of the Hawks’ reach.
Source: Mail & Guardian
Monday, September 27, 2010
Billionaire businessman arrested over threats to cops
BILLIONAIRE businessman and publisher of the newly launched newspaper, The New Age, Atul Kumar Gupta, will appear in the Randburg magistrate's court this morning on an obstruction of justice charge.
Gupta was travelling in his black X5 BMW from his offices in Midrand at about 9pm on Saturday when the police stopped him on the R55 highway. His driver and bodyguard was frisked. Police found a licenced firearm on him. Sources said when the police officers wanted to search Gupta and his car he refused. He then got on the phone and said he was calling General Bheki Cele, but not before telling them that he knew all the top police commissioners and would get them all fired. "All hell broke loose when Gupta refused to be searched. He also boasted that he was well-connected to Cele, threatening the arresting officers that they would pay for their actions," one source said. "This did not go down well with Constables Aubrey Mlotshwa and a Constable Mangema. "The police officers pulled Gupta out of his car, before taking him to the Sandton police station, where a charge was laid against him."
At the police station he was taken to an office, where he was interviewed and released just after midnight. Several managers from Sahara, including Duduzane Zuma, arrived at the police station.
Gauteng provincial police spokesperson Colonel Noxolo Kweza confirmed the arrest and said the law would take its course. Kweza said there was nothing wrong with releasing the businessman. The courts would determine whether he was guilty or not. She said the police were conducting their normal patrols on the R55 when they flagged down Gupta's car.
Gupta family spokesperson Gary Naidoo confirmed to CAJ News that his boss was arrested and charged but declined to shed more light on what transpired. He said Gupta was in Durban yesterday.
Cele's spokesperson, Nonkululeko Mbatha, said the general would not comment on the matter. "He (Cele) wouldn't have interfered, whether the person who was being arrested was a family member or a friend. Police arrest whoever. "They have to do their job. If the case is genuine it should go to court," she said.
Gupta has been a close friend of President Jacob Zuma since 1993. Apart from Sahara, the Gupta family trust has interests in mining through Afripalm and owns coal mining company Tigeta Mining & Resources, and JIC, a mining services company. They also publish The Thinker, a political journal. Gupta's brother, Rajesh, and Zuma's son, Duduzane, are business partners who recently clinched the controversial R9 billion ArcelorMittal business deals.
Source: The Sowetan
Gupta was travelling in his black X5 BMW from his offices in Midrand at about 9pm on Saturday when the police stopped him on the R55 highway. His driver and bodyguard was frisked. Police found a licenced firearm on him. Sources said when the police officers wanted to search Gupta and his car he refused. He then got on the phone and said he was calling General Bheki Cele, but not before telling them that he knew all the top police commissioners and would get them all fired. "All hell broke loose when Gupta refused to be searched. He also boasted that he was well-connected to Cele, threatening the arresting officers that they would pay for their actions," one source said. "This did not go down well with Constables Aubrey Mlotshwa and a Constable Mangema. "The police officers pulled Gupta out of his car, before taking him to the Sandton police station, where a charge was laid against him."
At the police station he was taken to an office, where he was interviewed and released just after midnight. Several managers from Sahara, including Duduzane Zuma, arrived at the police station.
Gauteng provincial police spokesperson Colonel Noxolo Kweza confirmed the arrest and said the law would take its course. Kweza said there was nothing wrong with releasing the businessman. The courts would determine whether he was guilty or not. She said the police were conducting their normal patrols on the R55 when they flagged down Gupta's car.
Gupta family spokesperson Gary Naidoo confirmed to CAJ News that his boss was arrested and charged but declined to shed more light on what transpired. He said Gupta was in Durban yesterday.
Cele's spokesperson, Nonkululeko Mbatha, said the general would not comment on the matter. "He (Cele) wouldn't have interfered, whether the person who was being arrested was a family member or a friend. Police arrest whoever. "They have to do their job. If the case is genuine it should go to court," she said.
Gupta has been a close friend of President Jacob Zuma since 1993. Apart from Sahara, the Gupta family trust has interests in mining through Afripalm and owns coal mining company Tigeta Mining & Resources, and JIC, a mining services company. They also publish The Thinker, a political journal. Gupta's brother, Rajesh, and Zuma's son, Duduzane, are business partners who recently clinched the controversial R9 billion ArcelorMittal business deals.
Source: The Sowetan
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)