Mukoni T Ratshitanga
Allegations of corruption have been levelled against Khayalethu Home Loans (KHL), a subsidiary of the South African Housing Trust charged with arranging low- cost housing loans.
KHL is chaired by Deputy President Thabo Mbeki’s special adviser, Frank Chikane.
It has been alleged that KHL paid more than R300 000 for one year’s tenure to David Moshoeshoe, a consultant and business manager of a company owned by KHL director, Siza Khampepe.
Moshoeshoe’s DM Development Consultants was hired to consult “in the areas of [bond] payment normalisation and Masakhane”, according to his letter of appointment dated May 24 1995.
KHL staffers say Moshoeshoe did not do the work, but “simply earned free money”, and communities he claims to have consulted flatly deny they were ever contacted by him or his employees.
His letter of appointment, which is in the possession of the Mail & Guardian, was drawn up five months after the job started. It did not say how long Moshoeshoe’s tenure as a consultant would be. Khampepe confirmed his staffers’ claims that Moshoeshoe’s contract ended in December 1995.
Moshoeshoe’s letter is in sharp contrast with a detailed 15-page legal agreement drafted in 1996 between KHL and another Pretoria-based consultant, Keith Griffiths, shortly after Moshoeshoe’s contract ended.
That agreement — also in the possession of the M&G — clearly spells out Griffiths’s term of employment, a breakdown of fees and expenses he could claim, how payments would be made and his brief.
Other documents in the possession of the M&G show that Moshoeshoe earned between R25 000 and R30 000 a month in consulting fees and charges while he was drawing a salary at Khampepe’s Germiston-based Supreme Refurbishing and Freight Services.
In August 1995 alone, Moshoeshoe earned R24 545 from KHL for work done in two Gauteng townships, Palm Springs and Khutsong — half the amount it gives for a housing loan to its clients.
In the same month, he claimed for a Masakhane survey which took 31 hours. According to expense claims also in the possession of the M&G, Moshoeshoe travelled a staggering 5 233km in Gauteng. This means that the consultant travelled 168km an hour if he worked a 24-hour day.
In the same claim, he travelled 3 157km liaising with transitional local councils (TLCs) and attending “civic meetings” for 27 hours.
A mass meeting at Palm Springs and an 11- hour consultation with leaders sent Moshoeshoe travelling another 1 837km. And he finally required a three-hour consultation with Khampepe at a charge of R250 an hour.
Moshoeshoe this week said the kilometres were travelled “over an extended period, not during the alleged one month”, an assertion that is contradicted by his expense claims.
Khampepe said Moshoeshoe’s high mileage claims were due to “a survey which required extensive travelling”. He added that the consultant “did not charge us [KHL] for the hours spent while travelling”. But documents in the possession of the M&G show Moshoeshoe did.
Griffiths — whose work between February and March 1996 included drafting KHL’s policy and procedures, a planning document and an action plan — charged only R17 313. Moreover, Palm Springs and Khutsong leaders have denied ever meeting Moshoeshoe.
“People are taking chances. I have to be very frank with you. I don’t know this person,” said Palm Springs South African National Civic Organisation (Sanco) leader Simon Maphalla. I have been responsible for mass meetings for a long time and the consultants we have dealt with have always been whites. `There is no TLC in Palm Springs. There has never been one,” he said.
Jomo Mogale, another Sanco leader in the township of Khutsong, where Moshoeshoe claims to have consulted, also denied meeting him.
Sanco’s national president and Palm Springs resident Mlungisi Hlongwane said his organisation had never met Moshoeshoe. “Neither the name nor the consultancy is known to us. And there has never been a mass meeting in which consultants attended.”
KHL has been unable to clarify why community leaders do not know Moshoeshoe.
Hlongwane said the only consultants his community had ever dealt with were Griffiths and Saths Moodley — the controversial Mpumalanga housing official who played a pivotal role in the province’s Motheo housing scandal.
Moodley facilitated a joint task team between Sanco and KHL that finally paved the way for the end of the bond boycott when the two organisations signed an agreement in 1996.
Khampepe last month claimed it was Moshoeshoe who brokered the deal, through “market intelligence” research.
Initially, Moshoeshoe said: “My role was merely to get problems from township dwellers. They [KHL] were still trying to change this thing on their payments. They were still talking to street committees to get problems from township dwellers. Whatever problem I could get, I had to pass it on to them.”
This week he added that his brief was “to assist KHL to get access to its clients through market intelligence. This involved gathering data mainly by surveys.”
Khampepe promised to review Moshoeshoe’s “intelligence reports”. But so far, he has only been able to show one four-page report which suggested that KHL be “cautious” in dealing with township communities. This week, he said there were three other reports.
It is not the first time that corruption allegations against KHL’s management have been raised. In July 1996, 16 Black Lawyers Association (BLA) members presented a three-page document to KHL’s chair Frank Chikane.
The anonymous document, which is in the possession of the M&G, was apparently drawn up by KHL’s senior black management. It alleged staff were forming consultancy firms which were co-managed by themselves, friends and relatives: “Some of the `developers’ were in fact fronts set up by some senior executives who would be involved in adjudicating the awarding of these contracts to the `developers’.”
Chikane allegedly rejected the document on grounds of its anonymity. He said this week he would not comment on “something KHL staffers say the BLA members told me. It would have been a different matter if the lawyers themselves were saying they told me this. I don’t think it’s correct in the first place.”
The government, through the Ministry of Housing, owns an 11% stake in the Housing Trust which in turn controls KHL. It began in 1988 as a housing-loan scheme for low- income earners. Other shareholders in the housing trust include banks and private companies.