MONDAY, 4.30PM
THE Motheo construction company at the centre of the Mpumalanga housing scandal is not about to close its doors, and the Mpumalanga rural housing project is going ahead, Motheo director Thandi Ndlovu said on Tuesday.
Ndlovu was responding to rumours which surfaced in a parliamentary housing committee hearing into the project, when Motheo suppliers claimed they had received telephone calls informing them Motheo would be unable to pay its bills. Ndlovu said the project is going ahead, even though Motheo has moved its bank accounts from Nedcor to Absa, and Absa is unable to provide bridging finance.
Ndlovu also revealed that Motheo was not newly registered in February this year after being awarded the contract, but arose as a result of a name change of a company registered on May 23 1996. Ndlovu said the company had originally been called Topihada, which she described as an “off-the-shelf” company and thus the name change. The contract had, however, been awarded to Motheo.
Earlier today, former Mpumalanga Housing Board chief Saths Moddley, who resigned over the scandal, told the committee that Motheo’s bank Nedcor had bounced a R1,2-million cheque issued by Motheo, despite there being R9,24-million in iuts account. Moodley said he then met Nedcor CEO Richard Laubscher and executive director Mike Lemming to discuss the issue on April 21, three days before the project was launched.
Moodley claimed the bouncing of the cheque was never adequately explained, and Laubscher had suggested the only way to solve the problems surrounding Motheo would be to involve the auditor general. Moodley said questions need to be asked about why the request for the auditor general’s investigation had come from the bank, and why Nedcor employee Kevin Gibb, who was also the architect of the Mpumalanga housing policy, had been fired by the bank.
The committee will wait for the auditor-general’s report before deciding on whether it will call fired housing derector-general Billy Cobbett or Nedcor executives to testify, its chairman Magashe Mafolo said.