JUSTIN ARENSTEIN, Nelspruit | Sunday 7.00PM.
MPUMALANGA’S embattled parks chief, Alan Gray, lost a last-ditch bid to save his career on Friday despite a flurry of legal letters and frantic behind-the-scenes lobbying.
The Mpumalanga Parks Board recommended that Gray be suspended immediately pending the outcome of a discliplinary hearing into his handling of a series of offshore loan schemes totalling R1,3-billion. The most recent of the secretive schemes, all branded illegal by Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel, unconditionally bind the board’s assets and the region’s game parks to Fenetic Investments for one year in return for a R340-million loan.
Three promissory notes signed by Gray and allegedly kept secret from the board’s directors and the parastatal’s external auditors, KPMG, are being investigated by the Heah special investigaion unit and the Reserve Bank.
Board chairman Francis Legodi has confirmed that the directors voted that Gray be suspended.