JUSTIN ARENSTEIN, Nelspruit | Wednesday 7.50pm.
Mpumalanga’s provincial executive council refused to grill the province’s finance MEC, Jacques Modipane, or other top politicians about their links with ousted parks chief, Alan Gray, for a second time on Wednesday.
An earlier scheduled showdown between the executive council and Modipane was cancelled last week after the council decided that all allegations involving Gray should be handled by new environmental affairs MEC, Fish Mahlalela.
Provincial spokesmen refused to give reasons for the second postponement of the threatened showdown with Modipane and Mahlalela’s predecessor, David Mkhwanazi. More than 15 witnesses who had been ordered to testify at the scheduled hearing were instead left standing in the sun outside Premier Mathews Phosa’s house for three hours during the meeting. When they were finally told to “disperse”, a number of the witnesses were told they might be recalled to testify next week.
Media reports revealed over the weekend that Modipane and Mkhwanazi, set up a secret business partnership with Gray in 1996. They also both allegedly had full prior knowledge of the series of secretive and illegal R1,3-billion promissory notes issued by Gray to financial brokers earlier this year. The promissory notes used Mpumalanga’s Parks Board’s (MPB) assets as collateral for a series of offshore loans of between R500-million and R340-million each.