OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Tuesday 10.30pm.
FORMER constitutional development minister Roelf Meyer, now deputy leader of the United Democratic Movement, has denied having anything to do with the lease of the World Trade Centre, now the subject of an inquiry by the Heath commission.
SABC TV reported that President Nelson Mandela has instructed Judge Willem Heath’s special unit to investigate the whether the lease of the World Trade Centre was unlawful or irregular. In the financial records there is R66-million still unaccounted for.
The World Trade Centre was leased for two-and-a-half years by the Department for Constitutional Development as the venue for multiparty talks which led to the 1993 constitutional agreement and the country’s first democratic election in 1994.
Meyer said that the department director general, or more usually the chief accounting officer, were responsible for agreements on behalf of the department.
“The contracts that were made at that stage by the Department of Constitutional Development was obviously done by the director general at the time,” he said. “The chief accounting officer enters into the agreement on behalf of the relevant department and that is not the responsibility of the relevant minister.”
Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee spokesman Ken Andrew told SABC TV that the investigation was launched after the Auditor General was unable to gain access to the accounts.
“We have not been able to get co-operation or access to documents which would enable the Auditor General to say that he is satisfied, because at present it is unauthorised expenditure.”
Heath said his committee will investigate “the validity of the lease agreement which led to the use and occupation of the World Trade Centre”. The committee will also look into whether the expenditure was justified and if a proper contract had been entered into.