Stefaans Brummer and Mungo Soggot
Documents in the possession of the Mail & Guardian show that the deputy president of the Constitutional Court accused Mathole Motshekga, the man who is to be sworn in as Gauteng premier on Monday, of fraudulently administering international donor money.
These, or similar, allegations have been known to senior African National Congress officials since well before Motshekga’s election to the provincial leadership last November. The party failed to act decisively and publicly. Instead it was accused of trying to manipulate the contest to block Motshekga. This backfired when branches, resistant to directives from above, voted him provincial chair.
Presidential representative Parks Mankahlana this week refused to comment on claims that Nelson Mandela confronted Motshekga about his past, during the election battle and again this month. It is understood Motshekga was last week rallying former colleagues to back his version of events after Mandela demanded an explanation.
The documents, which date back to the late 1980s, record a stinging attack on Motshekga by Constitutional Court Judge Pius Langa, then president of the progressive National Association of Democratic Lawyers (Nadel).
At that time a Catholic funding agency — which had channelled almost R1-million of European Community money to a legal clinics project directed by Motshekga — had grown increasingly alarmed about his handling of the operation.
The Dublin-based agency, Trocaire, approached leading members of the Mass Democratic Movement, including Langa, to air its suspicions. This led to an informal investigation by Nadel, sending ripples through the anti-apartheid movement. Trocaire pulled out of the project in protest.
The M&G has also learned that in 1994 Motshekga was embroiled in a messy dispute with members of staff at the institute, some of whom accused him in the Industrial Court of nepotism and autocratic behaviour. Motshekga settled out of court.
Motshekga, a bright young University of South Africa (Unisa) law student, became involved in the anti-apartheid struggle during one of two stints at German universities in the late Seventies and early Eighties. He actively joined the ANC underground in 1986 while employed by Unisa’s law faculty.
He forged ties with prominent exiled ANC members in Zambia and Zimbabwe through his association with the Centre for Development Studies, headquartered at the University of the Western Cape, and the Development Law Strategies project at Unisa, both of which acted as fronts for anti-apartheid activity.
In 1988, Motshekga took charge of the National Institute for Public Interest Law and Research, the institute which ran a number of legal-aid units. The institute was co-funded by the European Community, which channelled funds through Trocaire.
A senior Trocaire official said this week: “No further funds were transferred because of the lack of adequate narrative and financial reporting on the use of the funds for the purpose originally agreed. This was one of 25 projects funded by Trocaire during 1988 in South Africa, and it was the only one with which problems of this nature arose.”
It appears that the Trocaire official in charge of the project, Chris McInerney, became alarmed after talks with the institute’s accountant, who has since died.
McInerney pursued his concerns together with a former member of the institute who claimed Motshekga had buried information she collected on alleged financial irregularities. McInerney’s suspicions were fuelled by a March 1989 report Motshekga prepared on the institute for Trocaire. McInerney passed this on to Langa.
A memo of a conversation held between McInerney and Langa on June 26 1989 records Langa as saying he “does not believe the contents of the report. He [Langa] specifically says that two centres mentioned in the report which are supposed to have been set up do not exist. Place names and place histories mentioned in the report appear to be fictitious — there are queries over several of these …
“Moreover, reports on the activities of the centre appear to be incorrect. The volume of work alleged to be carried out is too high. There are certain matters which the applicant claims to have handled which are known to be incorrect. Pius [Langa] has no doubt that the reports are extremely fraudulent.”
The memo said Nadel had undertaken to investigate the matter and was considering ousting Motshekga as vice-president of the organisation.
The precise circumstances surrounding Motshekga’s departure from Nadel remain unclear.
Several members and associates of Nadel this week confirmed knowledge of the allegations against Motshekga. But a prominent member of the organisation at the time, Minister of Justice Dullah Omar, said this week he was unaware of any allegations of impropriety on the part of Motshekga.
McInerney wrote several letters to the institute demanding it account for the European Community money. In December 1989, he visited South Africa to discuss with the institute an inquiry into the handling of the grant. After his visit there was a flurry of heated correspondence between McInerney, Motshekga and Dr Nthato Motlana, the institute’s chair.
In a January 1990 letter to Motlana, McInerney discussed the scope of the inquiry, which would have included probing poor staff relations; double funding by Trocaire and other donors for projects; long-overdue audits; and confusion over the number of law centres that actually existed.
Ten months later, McInerney accused Motshekga of failing to tackle any of the problems raised almost a year before. “It is now clear that only four legal services centres are operating … You will remember that the original grant from the European Commission covered 13 centres.”
He also reminded Motshekga of the “double funding of aspects, admitted by you last December, of the institute’s programme and the need for audited accounts. These have still not been addressed.”
The inquiry never took place and Trocaire decided to pull out of the project, which was then funded by, among others, USAid, and later by Sweden’s Save the Children (Radda Barnen).
Pressure from funders resulted in a September 1993 audit by Coopers & Lybrand – – the first in three years. The auditing firm expressed grave misgivings about the institute’s accounts, according to the agenda of a meeting planned with Motshekga and accountant Joel Dikgole.
It complained that the institute did not respond to queries about the accounts; that the accountant in charge had “no knowledge or prior experience of accounting”; that cheques were missing; that there were a series of discrepancies including one between rental payments and a lease; and a general dearth of documentation and internal financial controls.
Coopers & Lybrand’s stern words do not appear to have eradicated the accounting problems. In January 1994, USAid wrote to Motshekga saying that an audit report was about six months late, but a United States Information Service representative said this week that he knew of no other problems and that the institute was a “USAid showcase”.
Radda Barnen, which has pumped R8-million into the institute during the past seven years, is re-evaluating its support. The Swedish organisation says this is part of a standard monitoring of all its projects in South Africa.
The M&G understands that a review of the institute, conducted last year by a South African consultant on behalf of Radda Barnen, was critical: it found the institute had not accounted and reported adequately, but also that Radda Barnen had failed to apply proper controls. The Swedish organisation refused to release the report this week.
Three years ago Motshekga settled Industrial Court actions brought against the institute by retrenched staffers. One of them, Ivy Barry, said in an April 1994 affidavit that a year earlier Motshekga had convened a staff workshop in preparation for a funding proposal to USAid.
When Motshekga failed to turn up at the workshop’s opening day, the workshop facilitator encouraged staff to voice their grievances. These allegedly included nepotism and autocratic management by Motshekga, a lack of financial accountability, bad planning and unapproved use of funding.
A month later, Motshekga allegedly told a staff meeting in Pretoria that USAid had agreed to continue funding and that one Gloria Green would be employed by the institute to finalise funding proposals. “He indicated that Mrs Green is somehow related [to USAid’s linkman Louis Coronado] and that this will be to enhance the status of the institute within the USAid hierarchy.”
Barry said in her affidavit that she had better qualifications than two staff members who were not retrenched — Johanna Mohale and Letta Booysen. Barry claimed Mohale was retained as Motshekga had fathered her child and that Booysen had been employed because Motshekga had “a somehow [sic] relationship with her former employer, a certain Mrs Mokotong”.
Motshekga also has many supporters, one of whom is Professor Andre Thomashausen, head of Unisa’s institute of foreign and comparative law to which Motshekga was attached for a number of years.
Thomashausen, who gave Motshekga a clean bill of health this week, said: “His drive would sometimes make him forget his limitations … with a good team he will make an excellent politician.”
Another Unisa employee, who asked to remain anonymous, was less flattering. “He could not work with money, he could not do paperwork … the sheriff was always knocking at his door.”
Motshekga’s own law firm, Meltz, Le Roux, Motshekga Incorporated, faxed a five-page reply to the M&G at the time of going to press.
The document dismissed the majority of the allegations against Motshekga and went so far as to say he had never been accused by Trocaire of mishandling funds.
The lawyers said Motshekga had a good relationship with Langa, and denied there had been heated correspondence between the institute and Trocaire. It admitted to a “difference of opinion between Trocaire and Motshekga” which led to the withdrawal of the funding.