JUSTIN ARENSTEIN, Nelspruit | Tuesday 4.00pm.
MPUMALANGA Premier Mathews Phosa has scheduled a special provincial executive meeting at his Nelspruit home on Wednesday to deliberate an urgent recommendation for the suspension of the province’s parks chief, Alan Gray.
The political fate of the province’s finance MEC, Jacques Modipane, is also expected to be discussed at both the executive meeting and at a later African National Congress (ANC) provincial working committee session. Modipane became embroiled in the illegal R1,3-billion offshore loan scheme allegedly engineered by Gray after admitting last week that he had been aware of the deals since at least February.
He failed to report the schemes to either the provincial executive or any other fiscal bodies and also failed to prevent the MPB from issuing three promissory notes worth R340-million in July.
On Monday, the Mpumalanga Parks Board’s board of directors tabled its report calling for Gray’s suspension and an internal hearing into his role in issuing at least five illegal promissory notes on Monday. The notes, worth R1,3-billion, were issued to a series of relatively unknown financial brokerages and irrevocably and unconditionally bind the MPB’s assets to the brokers for one-year terms as collateral for loans ranging from R500-million to R340-million.
Modipane initially denied all knowledge of the offshore loan schemes and accused Gray of forging his signature on the three most recent promissory notes, worth R340-million. Initial forensic tests by American handwriting expert Gregory MacNally have dismissed Modipane’s suggestion that his signature was attached to the promissory notes electronically and have proved the signatures are originals all signed by the same person. They have not yet been tested against a specimen signature to conclusively prove whether they are the embattled MEC’s. Modipane has since refused to comment on the issue following a public admission last week that the International Bank of Southern Africa had tipped him off about the loan schemes in February.