The board of directors of banking group FirstRand have decided to extend former transport minister Mac Maharaj’s leave of absence as a director of the company for a further two months.
This follows a meeting of the board on Tuesday convened to discuss the final report on its probe into reports that Maharaj accepted payments of R500 000 from a businessman linked to a R60-billion government arms deal while he was transport minister.
Maharaj has been on three months leave of absence following allegations of impropriety made against him in the Sunday Times in February 2003.
FirstRand, with Maharaj’s agreement, appointed Hofmeyr Herbstein & Gihwala Inc to conduct an independent inquiry into the allegations and to assess the evidence on which they were based.
Dippenaar said at the time of the announcement of the appointment: “We are seeking to clarify the uncertainty regarding the allegations in an objective and transparent manner, while abiding by the principles of due process and sound corporate governance.”
Dippenaar said on Wednesday that the FirstRand Limited Board had considered a progress report and had requested that auditors, Deloitte & Touche, as part of the necessary governance process, review the approach followed by FirstRand and attorneys Hofmeyr Herbstein & Gihwala Inc in the inquiry, so that the final report would be “sufficiently robust”.
He said that additional time was also needed to document verbal information and to collate that which had been obtained to date.
“Unfortunately the Sunday Times, to date, has not provided any of the information or documentation on which they based their allegations,” he said.
Dippenaar said it was the intention of the FirstRand Board that a final decision would be taken during July 2003. He added that “finality is necessitated by good corporate governance and the statutory regulations applying to companies and banks”.
“The Registrar of Banks and the Financial Services Board are being kept informed of the inquiry’s progress and have agreed with the extension of the leave of absence for two months.
“Any decision taken will apply to the Boards of FirstRand Limited, FirstRand Bank Holdings Limited, Discovery Holdings Limited and any other internal Boards on which Mr Maharaj serves,” Dippenaar added.
Maharaj, who quit politics and joined FirstRand in 1999, was a director on three of the group’s boards – FirstRand Bank, Discovery and FirstRand holding company. – I-Net Bridge