JUSTIN ARENSTEIN, Johannesburg | Thursday 7.00pm.
SUSPENDED Mpumalanga Parks Board chief Alan Gray lost his bid on Thursday to have 23 separate misconduct and maladministration charges against him dismissed.
MPB chairman Francis Legodi confirmed that independent presiding officer, Kobus Lowies, dismissed Gray’s argument that the MPB had no legal jurisdiction over his actions as parks board chief executive officer.
“Lowies ruled that the MPB is Gray’s legal employer and is therefore fully entitled to discipline him,” said Legodi.
A date for Gray’s disciplinary hearing has therefore finally been set for August 3 — almost one year after Gray was first suspended on fraud and corruption charges last year.
The charges were sparked by Gray’s role in the R1,3-billion promissory note scandal 11 months ago, when he used 32 public game reserves to issue six illegal promissory notes worth roughly R300-million each in return for a series of massive off-shore loans.
The promissory notes were issued without ministerial, cabinet, Reserve Bank or Treasury approval.
The scandal eventually cost provincial finance MEC Jacques Modipane and provincial environmental MEC Fish Mahlalela their jobs and also sparked the bitter infighting that cost Premier Mathews Phosa his position in the province.
Gray is also accused of abusing the MPB budget and various other State funds to bankroll the African National Congress and several of its leaders.
Both the police fraud unit and Judge Willem Heath’s special investigative unit are still probing his alleged use of front companies and bogus expense accounts to channel an estimated R1,1-million out of the MPB with the assistance of his former finance director, Nico Krugel. –African Eye News Service