Almost a quarter of a ‘million rand intended for ‘the poor was allegedly diverted by Allan Boesak. ‘Stefaans Br’mmer and Rehana Rossouw report
AMONG the 30-odd charges faced by former African National Congress Cape leader Allan Boesak when he appears in court next year is that his foundation misappropriated a donation of almost a quarter of a million rand from Coca-Cola which was intended for the poor.
Boesak, who has said he will return voluntarily from the United States to stand trial in Cape Town on January 17, and his former bookkeeper Freddie Steenkamp, who appeared in Cape Town Magistrate’s Court on Friday last week, are each alleged to have been involved in the misappropriation of more than a million rand of donor funds in total.
Steenkamp, who was not asked to plead on 21 theft and nine fraud charges, was released on R2 000 bail after a brief court appearance.
The Mail & Guardian reported early last year that the Atlanta-based Coca-Cola Foundation was ‘blissfully unaware’ its April 1992 donation to Boesak’s Foundation for Peace and Justice had not been used as intended. This came after Danish funders DanChurch Aid had launched an investigation into allegations that the foundation had diverted its own donations.
A Coca-Cola representative said at the time that the company had made the $50 000 donation (R234 000 at current exchange rates) on the understanding it would be passed to the Caravan Community Project in the Karoo town of Carnarvon to build a creche and other facilities.
The M&G reported that while DanChurch had also donated the equivalent of R53 000 to the foundation for the same project, Caravan never received more than R10 000 from the foundation.
Boesak, who has been lecturing at the American Baptist seminary in Berkeley, California, for the past 18 months and lives in San Francisco with his wife, Elna, and their four-year-old daughter, could not be reached for comment this week.
But he has maintained in the past that no money was diverted for his ‘personal use’. Boesak may well argue in his defence that donor funds were indeed diverted, but with the knowledge of his donors ‘ and that the money was used for the ‘struggle’.
A former activist this week asserted that Boesak was indeed at times the person to ‘turn to’ for funding of ac-tivities, some of them underground, against apartheid.
Ironically, a former senior police Security Branch member, who was closely involved in the apartheid state’s monitoring of Boesak during the 1980s, confirmed to the M&G that in the early to mid-1980s police became aware Boesak was a channel for foreign funding used in the struggle ‘ including donations from Coca-Cola.
He said Boesak was under surveillance, which included the use of postal and other intercepts, but ‘we never figured it out exactly, as our information was not that good’.
It appears, however, that the present charges against Boesak relate exclusively to his post-1990 activities, when the ANC had already been unbanned and the need for clandestine funding was theoretically over.
It may well be asked to what extent Boesak, who lived in an upper-class suburb and drove an Italian luxury car, was able to distinguish between his own needs and those of the struggle.
DanChurch, after an investigation by local law firm Bell, Dewar and Hall, charged early last year that the Foundation for Peace and Justice had diverted R1,9-million of its donations.
At the same time, details emerged of the alleged misappropriation of a substantial amount from the Children’s Trust, of which Boesak, Desmond Tutu and anti-apartheid stalwart Mary Burton were trustees.
Tutu and Burton then resigned from the trust, which had been started with the proceeds of Paul Simon concerts in South Africa.
A charge relating to the Children’s Trust is understood to form part of the charge sheet against Boesak.
Deputy President Thabo Mbeki’s office initially poured cold water on the allegations in April last year, when a report by his legal adviser, Mojanku Gumbi, found the DanChurch charges against Boesak, then an ambassador-designate, ‘unsubstantiated’.
But the investigation was taken up by the Office for Serious Economic Offences (Oseo), which pulled in auditing firm KPMG for help and sent staff to the United States and Europe to collect information.
A bulky docket was handed to Cape Attorney General Frank Kahn a year ago. Kahn’s staff re-interviewed witnesses and also travelled to the US and Europe before making public its decision to prosecute earlier this month.