OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Tuesday 9.00pm
THE African National Congress on Tuesday evening said it is “dissatisfied” with the statement released by Heath Special Investigating Unit earlier in the day on the results of the inquiry into Mpumalanga finance MEC Jacques Modipane role in promissory notes scandal.
Speaking at a press briefing in Johannesburg, Mpumalanga premier Ndaweni Mahlangu said the terms which unit head Judge Willem Heath used to pronounce Modipane’s innocence were vague.
Mahlangu further said the party is offended by the statement which “creates an impression that Modipane admitted to signing the document [promissory] notes” and by the unit’s “reluctance to pronounce … Modipane’s innocence”.
Heath confirmed in a formal statement on Tuesday that two separate forensic handwriting tests by police specialists prove that Modipane signed the contentious documents in July 1998.
Heath further said that on the case stating that the unit will cease investigating the matter, as it is now under investigation by the police and the Office for Serious Economic Offences.
The statement reads further that Modipane maintains that that he was misrepresented on the contents of the promissory notes and that he signed them unwittingly.
ANC secretary general Kgalema Motlanthe, who attended Mahlangu’s press conference, said the statement by Heath does make explicit that the promissory notes were signed by Mpumalanga Parks Board officials and that a commissioner of oaths who stamped a promissory note in Modipane’s absence in Sandton is being investigated.