The African National Congress in Gauteng has established a task group to examine allegations, reported in the Mail & Guardian last week, that provincial premier Mathole Motshekga fraudulently administered international donor money.
The ANC provincial executive decided on an “inquiry into the need for an inquiry” last Saturday, a day after provincial office- bearers said no investigation was warranted. Provincial secretary Paul Mashatile said that Tokyo Sexwale, Motshekga’s predecessor, had become aware of the allegations last October when he was handed documents containing the allegations and asked Motshekga to account for them.
Mashatile said Motshekga replied to Sexwale that the allegations were “unsubstantiated, vague and false”. He did not make it clear whether Motshekga had given a detailed response. The M&G understands that Motshekga failed to do that — when pressed he allegedly told Sexwale he had “lost” the documents. Clearly there remains no option now but to give a full explanation to the task team, which is to make a recommendation to the provincial executive in a fortnight.
Motshekga’s explanation is likely to contain similar disavowals to those contained in an answer prepared for the M&G last week by Motshekga’s own law firm, Meltz, Le Roux, Motshekga Incorporated. The reply, which reached the M&G after deadline and could not be reproduced in detail, stated:
* Motshekga denied he had ever been accused by any funder of mishand-ling international donor money.
* Motshekga denied having been approached by President Nelson Mandela’s office about his past, also saying Motshekga had no need to rally former associates to his defence, as his support base was evident.
* Motshekga maintained he had always had a “good relationship” with Constitutional Court deputy president Pius Langa, and therefore questioned the authenticity of a donor memo in which Langa was quoted to have said the contents of a report from Motshekga to the donor, Trocaire, been “extremely fraudulent”. After the M&G’s story last week, Langa said in a statement that “the language attributed to me is not the language I would have used”. Langa did not deny he “may have expressed opinions on the facts put to me”.
* Motshekga said the institute’s books have been properly audited.
* Motshekga denied any “heated correspondence”with Trocaire, but says he “took exception” to Trocaire’s attempts to meddle in the way the institute “conducted its affairs”.
* Motshekga did not deny that the institute’s auditors, Coopers & Lybrand, wrote a report in which it said the institute’s accountant was useless, that cheques were missing and that there was a general dearth of documentation.
* Motshekga described Ivy Barry — a former employee who accused him of nepotism and corruption in the industrial court — as a “disgruntled employee” and her “false allegations were never tested”.