Cape Town - The public protector (PP) will launch a preliminary investigation into alleged plundering of the Treasury during the closing years of apartheid.
The plunder, involving various companies and prominent businessmen, relates to numerous alleged illegal transactions amounting to as much as R200bn.
The SA Reserve Bank,
Absa Group [JSE:ASA],
Sanlam [JSE:SLM], Rembrandt
(now
Remgro [JSE:REM]), KWV and even the Dutch Reformed Church have apparently been
named in a confidential report, which was compiled by a British forensic investigation firm and handed to the South African government in 1999.
The report surfaced again in Parliament last year. The PP,
Thuli Masdonsela, said on Wednesday she has decided to launch a preliminary investigation after having initially felt that the alleged offences fell outside of her mandate and that she had too few resources to tackle the task properly.
Advocate
Paul Hoffman, who lodged the original complaint says he is extremely pleased about the PP’s decision. The complaint was based on the content of a report by the British firm Ciex, who carried out a forensic investigation on the instruction of the SA government in 1997 and provided feedback through the secret service.
The Ciex report (of which Beeld has obtained a copy) states that during an unrelated investigation in 1995 an apparently illegal payment of R3.2bn was made by the Reserve Bank to Absa’s predecessor, Bankorp, in which several prominent businessmen, who are mentioned by name, were involved.
The payments were disguised as a lifeline, according the report, which also said that the local banking industry was "under the control of the Broederbond".
The then Heath Special Investigation Unit subsequently found in 1999 that the payments by the Reserve Bank to Bankorp/Absa, as well as similar payments to Sanlam, were illegal. This money was not, however, reclaimed, out of fear of damaging the banking industry.
Ciex’s investigation into the Reserve Bank and Bankorp/Absa led to even more revelations about alleged illegal transactions in which money was “moved” from the Treasury. These included similar payments to Nedbank, the former Trust Bank, fraud relating to large-scale government purchases, irregularities with regard to gold reserves and concealed offshore Reserve Bank assets.
Ciex’s services were terminated on December 31 1998 and its reports ignored by former President Thabo Mbeki’s government.
Hennie van Vuuren, a senior researcher at the Institute for Security Studies (ISS), who has researched apartheid corruption, says the Treasury was extensively "plundered" between 1976 and 1994, as the Ciex report shows.
“This does not only go back to [John] Vorster and [PW] Botha, but also involves the new elite. This is why it has not yet been properly investigated. The political will simply does not exist.”
Absa’s chief group legal advisor, Marthinus van Rensburg, says the bank will lend its full co-operation to Madonsela. However, the allegations are already decades old and previous investigations had found that no action was required.
Madonsela is currently in the eye of a media storm after The Star reported that the police planned to arrest her over a R1.8m payment made by the SA Law Reform Commission to a company she owned, while she worked for the commission three years ago.
However several organisations said that the claims against Madonsela were part of an attempt to intimidate and stop her from investigating the police, Sapa reported.
For business news in Afrikaans, go to
www.sake24.com.