IT mogul Robert Gumede will not be prosecuted for corruption. The National Prosecuting Authority recently informed Gumede's former business partner and complainant in the case, John Sterenborg, that it could not find "sufficient evidence to warrant a prosecution".
Sterenborg, who was Gumede's business partner in the smart-card manufacturer Applied Card Technologies (ACT), laid charges of corruption against Gumede in February 2007 relating to the awarding of a multimillion-rand phonecard tender by Telkom. ACT originally tendered for the Telkom contract, but was subsequently liquidated and bought by Gumede’s Gijima Afrika Smart Technologies (GAST).
Telkom awarded the tender to GAST in 2002 and Sterenborg accused Gumede, chairperson of listed IT company GijimaAST, of irregularly diverting business from ACT. GAST is not related to GijimaAST. In 2007 Sterenborg laid charges against Gumede with the police that Gumede allegedly bribed Telkom executives to obtain the tender. The case was referred by the police to the NPA's Specialised Commercial Crimes Court (SCCC) in Johannesburg, where prosecutor Pierre Tickner declined to prosecute the matter in June 2007. After making more representations to the NPA, Sterenborg got the case transferred back to the police who further investigated the matter.
However, Gideon Nkoana, a deputy director of public prosecutions at the SCCC, informed Sterenborg on November 2 this year that he was declining to prosecute the matter. "After painstaking perusal and consideration of the available evidence, including the additional evidence obtained by Captain Wie [the investigating officer], I am unable to find sufficient evidence to warrant a prosecution against either Gijima [sic] or Mr Robert Gumede. I therefore decline to prosecute," Nkoana wrote.
According to NPA spokesperson Mthunzi Mhaga, the evidence discovered by the police after the case was referred back to it "still did not take the matter any further". Through his lawyer, Gumede declined to respond to questions. Sterenborg was travelling and unavailable to comment.
Source: Mail & Guardian
Showing posts with label Robert Gumede. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Robert Gumede. Show all posts
Monday, November 23, 2009
Friday, March 13, 2009
The arms dealer who flies Zuma
Ivor Ichikowitz, the arms and oil broker who laid on his company jet to ferry Nelson Mandela to a Jacob Zuma election rally in Transkei, has made a career from turning political connections into profit. Last December Ichikowitz flew Zuma in the luxuriously converted Boeing 727 to Lebanon and Kazakhstan for what the Mail & Guardian understands were African National Congress (ANC) fundraising and business meetings.
Ichikowitz confirmed he provided that flight gratis, but said he went along to test recent upgrades to the jet and did not attend the meetings. At its commercial charter rate, $14 000 an hour, a return trip to Kazakhstan would have cost upwards of R5-million.
An M&G probe of Ichikowitz’s relations with the ANC and prominent Zuma backers indicates a man who has made it his business to get close to key power-brokers.
They include:
* Mathews Phosa, who shared a number of company directorships with Ichikowitz before his elevation to ANC treasurer;
* Moeletsi Mbeki, brother of the former president, who opened doors for Ichikowitz into Africa;
* Sandi Majali, former Thabo Mbeki acolyte and business frontman for the ANC and Kgalema Motlanthe in ill-fated oil trades with Saddam Hussein;
* Robert Gumede, owner of IT company GijimaAST and a prominent Zuma backer;
* Pik Botha, former National Party politician and long-time friend of the Ichikowitz family, who provided an entrée to African leaders including former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo.
Ichikowitz (42) made a fortune selling surplus South African armoured vehicles into Africa and the Middle East, and seems to have manoeuvred his way into Zuma’s inner circle. He was prominent among public donors to the ANC at a Zuma fundraiser organised by Gumede in October last year, pledging R6-million.
He told the M&G the business community should "transparently and voluntarily provide both the financial and skills resources political parties need to participate in the democratic process".
He denies direct or indirect business dealings with any political party. But his best-known entanglement with ANC funding occurred via his association with Majali and his Imvume group.
Ichikowitz, who also represents controversial commodities trader Glencore, partnered Majali in his 2001 bid to supply Iraqi crude to South Africa under the controversial oil-for-food programme allowing limited trade with Saddam’s Iraq.
In 2005 the M&G revealed Majali, with official ANC backing, intended setting up an oil trading operation intended to benefit the ANC and Saddam’s Ba’ath party.
Ichikowitz was also Majali’s partner in a contract to supply PetroSA condensate for its Mossel Bay refinery. The M&G exposed how Majali diverted R11-million of state oil money to the ANC before the 2004 election, but Oilgate also strained relations between the partners as Majali's actions created a cash-flow crisis for Ichikowitz's company. Ichikowitz told the M&G he was unaware of the link between Majali's company and the ANC and is no longer in business with Majali.
Moeletsi Mbeki, a key strategist for the Congress of the People, now appears to distance himself from close association with Ichikowitz. He said they were now in only one business together, a cattle feedlot enterprise.
Company records show a number of past African joint ventures, including the agency for Mahindra vehicle sales in South Africa. Ichikowitz said they had been friends "for many years" and went into business together about six years ago. He said he had been friends with Gumede since about 1989 "and [we] worked together in our family business before he started his own businesses". "We have no active business together and remain family friends."
Phosa once served on the boards of several companies with Ichikowitz, notably Vuka Fleet Management and Vuka Municipal Services, joint ventures between Phosa’s Vuka group and TFM, the truck body manufacturer hived off from the armoured vehicle company now owned by BAE-Systems.
Ichikowitz said Phosa had been "a family friend since his return from exile in the 1990s ... I have no interest in Mathews's businesses, nor he in mine." Ichikowitz may have slipped easily from the Mbeki era into the post-Polokwane ANC, but he has also taken advantage of family political connections stretching back to apartheid.
A source close to the family said former apartheid foreign minister Pik Botha was introduced to the Ichikowitzes by the late John Pearce, then the Johannesburg council’s security head. Pearce, embedded in the apartheid security establishment, was fired in 1991 following revelations about military intelligence dirty-tricks operations.
Botha, whom Ichikowitz describes as "a long-standing friend", has been an informal adviser to Ichikowitz and was also said to have promoted Ichikowitz’s other main business: selling reconditioned surplus South African military equipment into Africa and the Middle East. Here too, Ichikowitz appears to have benefited from his ANC associations, with a defence department investigation into his trading activities suppressed before it could produce results.
Source: Mail & Guardian
Ichikowitz confirmed he provided that flight gratis, but said he went along to test recent upgrades to the jet and did not attend the meetings. At its commercial charter rate, $14 000 an hour, a return trip to Kazakhstan would have cost upwards of R5-million.
An M&G probe of Ichikowitz’s relations with the ANC and prominent Zuma backers indicates a man who has made it his business to get close to key power-brokers.
They include:
* Mathews Phosa, who shared a number of company directorships with Ichikowitz before his elevation to ANC treasurer;
* Moeletsi Mbeki, brother of the former president, who opened doors for Ichikowitz into Africa;
* Sandi Majali, former Thabo Mbeki acolyte and business frontman for the ANC and Kgalema Motlanthe in ill-fated oil trades with Saddam Hussein;
* Robert Gumede, owner of IT company GijimaAST and a prominent Zuma backer;
* Pik Botha, former National Party politician and long-time friend of the Ichikowitz family, who provided an entrée to African leaders including former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo.
Ichikowitz (42) made a fortune selling surplus South African armoured vehicles into Africa and the Middle East, and seems to have manoeuvred his way into Zuma’s inner circle. He was prominent among public donors to the ANC at a Zuma fundraiser organised by Gumede in October last year, pledging R6-million.
He told the M&G the business community should "transparently and voluntarily provide both the financial and skills resources political parties need to participate in the democratic process".
He denies direct or indirect business dealings with any political party. But his best-known entanglement with ANC funding occurred via his association with Majali and his Imvume group.
Ichikowitz, who also represents controversial commodities trader Glencore, partnered Majali in his 2001 bid to supply Iraqi crude to South Africa under the controversial oil-for-food programme allowing limited trade with Saddam’s Iraq.
In 2005 the M&G revealed Majali, with official ANC backing, intended setting up an oil trading operation intended to benefit the ANC and Saddam’s Ba’ath party.
Ichikowitz was also Majali’s partner in a contract to supply PetroSA condensate for its Mossel Bay refinery. The M&G exposed how Majali diverted R11-million of state oil money to the ANC before the 2004 election, but Oilgate also strained relations between the partners as Majali's actions created a cash-flow crisis for Ichikowitz's company. Ichikowitz told the M&G he was unaware of the link between Majali's company and the ANC and is no longer in business with Majali.
Moeletsi Mbeki, a key strategist for the Congress of the People, now appears to distance himself from close association with Ichikowitz. He said they were now in only one business together, a cattle feedlot enterprise.
Company records show a number of past African joint ventures, including the agency for Mahindra vehicle sales in South Africa. Ichikowitz said they had been friends "for many years" and went into business together about six years ago. He said he had been friends with Gumede since about 1989 "and [we] worked together in our family business before he started his own businesses". "We have no active business together and remain family friends."
Phosa once served on the boards of several companies with Ichikowitz, notably Vuka Fleet Management and Vuka Municipal Services, joint ventures between Phosa’s Vuka group and TFM, the truck body manufacturer hived off from the armoured vehicle company now owned by BAE-Systems.
Ichikowitz said Phosa had been "a family friend since his return from exile in the 1990s ... I have no interest in Mathews's businesses, nor he in mine." Ichikowitz may have slipped easily from the Mbeki era into the post-Polokwane ANC, but he has also taken advantage of family political connections stretching back to apartheid.
A source close to the family said former apartheid foreign minister Pik Botha was introduced to the Ichikowitzes by the late John Pearce, then the Johannesburg council’s security head. Pearce, embedded in the apartheid security establishment, was fired in 1991 following revelations about military intelligence dirty-tricks operations.
Botha, whom Ichikowitz describes as "a long-standing friend", has been an informal adviser to Ichikowitz and was also said to have promoted Ichikowitz’s other main business: selling reconditioned surplus South African military equipment into Africa and the Middle East. Here too, Ichikowitz appears to have benefited from his ANC associations, with a defence department investigation into his trading activities suppressed before it could produce results.
Source: Mail & Guardian
Friday, October 17, 2008
Major ANC donor in graft probe
A case of corruption has been opened against Robert Gumede, the chairperson of listed information technology company GijimaAST. The case, opened with the Roodepoort police station under case number 781/2/2007, concerns alleged bribes paid by Gumede to Telkom executives.
Gumede, who recently donated R10-million to the ANC during a fundraising dinner in Sandton, vehemently denies bribing Telkom officials and said he was not aware of the police's probe against him. The charge comes after a series of battles between Gumede and his former business partner, John Sterenborg. Gumede claims to have won all combat rounds thus far. Sterenborg, who lives in England, could not be reached for comment.
The Mail & Guardian has established that the South African Police Service's commercial branch in Johannesburg is actively pursuing the corruption charge against Gumede, relating to the award of a R600-million tender by Telkom to his Gijima Afrika Smart Technologies (GAST) in 2002. GAST is not related to the listed GijimaAST, which Gumede joined in 2005 as its black empowerment partner. Gumede's Guma group, formerly known as Gijima, acquired 37% of AST's shares in 2005 to form GijimaAST. Gumede is the non-executive chairperson of GijimaAST. The investigation of Gumede follows several bouts of litigation between him and Sterenborg about the acquisition of Applied Card Technologies (ACT), a smart-card manufacturer previously owned by Sterenborg.
Gumede was Sterenborg's black business partner in ACT when the company was placed under provisional liquidation. During that period ACT was asked by Telkom to tender for a R600-million contract to manufacture telephone cards until 2005. Gumede bought ACT and the Telkom tender was subsequently awarded to GAST. During a 2006 inquiry by the master of the high court into ACT's liquidation Sterenborg accused Gumede of irregularly diverting the phone card tender to his own company [GAST] while ACT was in dire need of revenue. However, Gumede told the M&G this week he believed Sterenborg "abandoned" the inquiry because he knew it would make adverse findings against him and not Gumede. Now the SAPS is investigating allegations that Telkom executives received benefits from Gumede while adjudicating his bid for the phone card contract.
Gumede told the M&G: "Your approach to this issue is clear: 'Aha, we have dirt on a man who is funding the ANC. Let's expose him.' But you know as well as I do that this 'dirt' does not exist -- because it is not 'dirt' on me, it is mud that was thrown at me by someone (the British citizen Dr John Sterenborg) who has himself been exposed as a liar, fraudster, an extortionist and a rogue," Gumede said in response to the M&G's questions. "I am not aware of any so-called investigation and will expect the SAPS to talk to me directly if there is such an investigation ... I am a law-abiding citizen."
Source: Mail & Guardian
Gumede, who recently donated R10-million to the ANC during a fundraising dinner in Sandton, vehemently denies bribing Telkom officials and said he was not aware of the police's probe against him. The charge comes after a series of battles between Gumede and his former business partner, John Sterenborg. Gumede claims to have won all combat rounds thus far. Sterenborg, who lives in England, could not be reached for comment.
The Mail & Guardian has established that the South African Police Service's commercial branch in Johannesburg is actively pursuing the corruption charge against Gumede, relating to the award of a R600-million tender by Telkom to his Gijima Afrika Smart Technologies (GAST) in 2002. GAST is not related to the listed GijimaAST, which Gumede joined in 2005 as its black empowerment partner. Gumede's Guma group, formerly known as Gijima, acquired 37% of AST's shares in 2005 to form GijimaAST. Gumede is the non-executive chairperson of GijimaAST. The investigation of Gumede follows several bouts of litigation between him and Sterenborg about the acquisition of Applied Card Technologies (ACT), a smart-card manufacturer previously owned by Sterenborg.
Gumede was Sterenborg's black business partner in ACT when the company was placed under provisional liquidation. During that period ACT was asked by Telkom to tender for a R600-million contract to manufacture telephone cards until 2005. Gumede bought ACT and the Telkom tender was subsequently awarded to GAST. During a 2006 inquiry by the master of the high court into ACT's liquidation Sterenborg accused Gumede of irregularly diverting the phone card tender to his own company [GAST] while ACT was in dire need of revenue. However, Gumede told the M&G this week he believed Sterenborg "abandoned" the inquiry because he knew it would make adverse findings against him and not Gumede. Now the SAPS is investigating allegations that Telkom executives received benefits from Gumede while adjudicating his bid for the phone card contract.
Gumede told the M&G: "Your approach to this issue is clear: 'Aha, we have dirt on a man who is funding the ANC. Let's expose him.' But you know as well as I do that this 'dirt' does not exist -- because it is not 'dirt' on me, it is mud that was thrown at me by someone (the British citizen Dr John Sterenborg) who has himself been exposed as a liar, fraudster, an extortionist and a rogue," Gumede said in response to the M&G's questions. "I am not aware of any so-called investigation and will expect the SAPS to talk to me directly if there is such an investigation ... I am a law-abiding citizen."
Source: Mail & Guardian
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