MONDAY, 3.30PM:
ALLAN BOESAK’S bookkeeper, Freddie Steenkamp, has been found guilty on five counts of fraud and one of theft involving R2,9 million.
Steenkamp and his former boss at the Foundation for Peace and Justice, Dr Allan Boesak, originally faced 32 charges of theft and fraud together, but their trials were separated when Steenkamp chose to plead guilty to five fraud charges and one theft charge. Prosecutors then withdrew the other charges against Steenkamp.
The case against Boesak — one of the highest-profile leaders of the anti-apartheid movement in the eighties — and his accountant Steenkamp, involved the disappearance of some R9 million in donor funds to the anti-apartheid foundation from European donor agencies. Boesak’s own case has been postponed to February next year.
Steenkamp’s counsel, Francois van Zyl, told the court on Monday that Steenkamp pleaded guilty to misrepresentation of figures in the foundation’s annual financial statements between 1991 and 1994, intended to mislead donors and trustees, and unauthorised personal loans to which he was not entitled.
The controversy dates back to 1995, when Scandinavian funders called in investigators to report on what had happened to money set aside for various childrens’ charities. When the funders uncovered cases of misappropriation, both Boesak and his committee blamed Steenkamp. The money was allegedly used for salary increases for Boesak, overseas trips by Boesak and his wife, and various “staff loans’.