Glenda Daniels and David Macfarlane
About 40 magistrates are implicated in a R37-million fraud probe involving luxury renovations to their offices and residences in the name of official repairs.
The magistrates are under investigation following the arrest last week of two building contractors on charges of defrauding the departments of public works and justice of R37,2-million.
Between 1997 and 1998 contractors David Piercy and Chris Brits renovated magistrates’ offices and official residences around the country, allegedly for exorbitant and unauthorised amounts.
The Department of Public Works had authorised amounts of R3 000 a magistrate’s office and R150 an official residence for repairs, says Kgotso Tau, director of communications in public works.
But in several cases well in excess of R1-million was spent, according to the charge sheets against Piercy and Brits. The trial of Brits will start on November 8.
Representative for the minister of justice Paul Setsetse confirmed this week that magistrates “are being investigated over the misuse of state funds”. After a joint justice and public works investigation, the departments handed the matter over to the Heath special investigative unit more than a year ago.
Tau says the public works department called in the asset forfeiture unit in May, because the investigation had been proceeding so slowly.
“The department is anxious to eradicate corruption,” he says.
A member of the asset forfeiture unit says that in some cases air conditioners and jacuzzis were installed in the name of repairs.
The charge sheets say invoices that Piercy and Brits submitted were false, misleading and bore no relation to the work actually performed, and claims were exorbitantly high in relation to some of the work done.
The departments of justice and public works had substantial funds, according to the charge sheets, which had been earmarked for repairs and renovations to public buildings, and these funds had to be applied for this purpose as a matter of urgency. But both Piercy and Brits allegedly acted with the intent to defraud.
However, it appears as though they did not act alone employees of the two departments seem to have aided them. An asset forfeiture unit member says that at least three officials in public works are under investigation for irregular conduct in relation to the renovations contract.
Piercy is also charged with giving a chief clerk in the justice department, Amanda Roodt, an Opel Corsa Lite in exchange for authorising renovations at the Fochville Magistrate’s Court and the official residence of the magistrate to the amount of for nearly R1,5-million in June 1998.
Implicated courts and fraudulent claims
CourtProvinceAmount
PhalaborwaNorthern ProvinceR1 575 988,93
Louis TrichardtNorthern ProvinceR1 139 829,48
PotgietersrusNorthern ProvinceR679 704,64
NaboomspruitNorthern ProvinceR401 849,34
NamakgaleNorthern ProvinceR377 978,37
Villa Nora Northern ProvinceR131 964,66
ErmeloMpumalangaR1821 533,00
BethalMpumalangaR736 945,73
BreytonMpumalangaR683 902,81
VolksrustMpumalangaR98 989,36
GroblersdalMpumalangaR367 979,79
Groot MaricoNorth WestR49 386,58
ColignyNorth WestR42 123,00
BritsNorth WestR396 565,32
SwartruggensNorth WestR28 032,54
FochvilleNorth WestR1 492 619,51
ZeerustNorth WestR667 677,61
VentersdorpNorth WestR717 037,06
SoshanguveNorth WestR195 462,51
RustenburgNorth WestR84 531,97
OberholzerNorth WestR2 102 072,36
WolmaranstadNorth WestR80 985,00
PongolaKwaZulu-NatalR1 232 833,45
@Quit bugging me, mate
Four high-profile bugging scandals recently made news. Now a professional debugger says telephone monitoring is on the increase. Paul Kirk reports
With some relief I recently learned my telephone lines were free of bugs and eavesdroppers.
The check did not take long. A private detective offered to demonstrate his equipment and within about 30 minutes established that nobody was listening in to my mostly very boring conversations.
These days buggers don’t hide microphones inside telephones. They can be hidden almost anywhere along the telephone line. Serious buggers don’t need to gain access to your home to tap your telephone.
A top Durban private investigator said he would have been amazed if a bug had been found on my line.
“People tend to think they are more important than they really are. Never forget that tapping a person’s phone properly costs a small fortune.
“For a tap to be worth anything it must be monitored 24 hours a day. That usually means three people working eight-hour shifts. If something explosive, something important, is said over the telephone then someone may need to be alerted straight away,” he said.
Not that cost puts a bugger off. Another private investigator said most buggers simply left tape recorders running on telephone lines. He said modern bugs are voice activated, alerting the bugger as soon as a conversation begins.
Four high-profile bugging scandals have recently hit the press:
l Umgeni Water boss Cromet Molepo was implicated in illegally tapping the telephones of trade unionists.
l Andrew Brophy, the owner of the Spy Shop in Durban, was arrested and charged with allegedly bugging a telephone. Brophy, court records show, has a previous conviction for telephone bugging.
l Governor of the South African Reserve Bank Tito Mboweni admitted that the National Intelligence Agency had discovered bugs inside its headquarters. The agency was called in after an important bank directive was leaked to a London financial institution.
l Last week the Human Rights Commission summonsed Northern Cape Premier Manne Dipico to answer allegations that he invaded an employee’s privacy by monitoring telephone calls.
Telephone bugging is increasing, says Raymond van Staden, a trained electro-mechanic with 20 years’ experience.
Owing to massive retrenchments in the public service many experienced police and intelligence operatives have entered the private sector. Adding to their number are scores of Telkom technicians, now retired, who offer their (often illegal) services on the open market.
The once feared telephone-tapping resources of the apartheid security apparatus are also up for sale to the highest bidder.
Van Staden said he would not bug a telephone illegally. He makes his bread and butter by debugging offices.
“In almost any newspaper you see adverts for telephone bugging services. Bugging is a crime. What view would the state take if a housebreaker were to advertise his services in the press?” he asked.
Debugging is capital intensive, the tools cost a lot of money. Van Staden, in contrast to the Durban private investigator, says that bugging, on the other hand, can cost very little. A few thousand rands and a bugger is equipped and ready to go. Competition among buggers is, as a result, cut-throat.
The basic tool kit used by a debugger costs about R500 000. Van Staden has two sets of these tools.
Van Staden made few friends when he labelled the bugging of the Democratic Alliance’s offices in Cape Town a “hoax”.
He believes the discovery of a “bug” in the party’s offices in 1999 was nothing but a publicity stunt for the person the party hired to do the sweep.
The DA claimed to have employed a private investigator who discovered a laser beam aimed at a window. This, the DA claimed, was used to monitor conversations in their office.
Van Staden pooh-poohs the claim.
“Such equipment does exist. But it is only effective in clinical conditions. Birds singing, cars passing by, and background music make this equipment fail.”
The devices used to bug telephones and boardrooms are almost limitless. Telephones can be modified to act as microphones, allowing a listener to hear conversations 6m or more away.
Tiny transmitters can be wired on to telephone lines. Tiny bugs can also be hidden in wall plugs, phones, televisions and a host of other devices.
“Probe” microphones can be inserted into holes drilled in walls, while “contact” microphones act like enormously powerful stethoscopes, allowing the bugger to hear conversations through walls and thick doors.
Bugs can even be wired into the mains wiring of a room to transmit signals down electricity lines.
According to the head of the South African Council of Investigators, Andy Grudko, there are probably only about six qualified, competent and properly equipped operators in the private sector who can provide specialist technical surveillance investigations or debugging services.
The government only has a right to bug phones, offices or homes of suspected criminals. Most bugs Van Staden finds are put in place for the purposes of industrial espionage.
The two main pieces of equipment used by Van Staden and most government agencies are the Locator Pro and the Scanlock Select Plus, both imported from the United Kingdom.
The Locator Pro picks up the presence of electronic items with diodes in them whether they are switched on or not. Tape recorders, microphones and almost anything electronic will be picked up by this device.
The Scanlock Select Plus is used to pick up radio transmissions in a room.
Because radio transmitters can be small, debuggers have to have a large array of tools to look into the tiniest nooks and crannies. Some transmitters are so small they can be hidden in keyholes.
@Bugging is heavily regulated in other countries
South Africa may be one of the few countries in the world where a person is more likely to be bugged by the private rather than the public sector. In the United States the possession, sale and manufacture of bugging equipment are banned. In most other countries it is heavily regulated.
Telephones can legally be tapped only if police, the National Intelligence Agency, the Secret Service or the South African National Defence Force are probing a “serious offence”.
The South African Law Commission says a “serious offence” does not include a once-off murder, rape or armed robbery. They are serial murder, rape and armed robbery and high treason.
Suspects can only be bugged if the crime is committed over a lengthy period, has been committed in an organised manner, has been committed by the same person on a regular basis or harms the economy. The only exceptions are offences committed under the Drugs and Drug Trafficking Act.
A month ago the Mail & Guardian asked the Department of Justice how many warrants were authorised for phone taps. They acknowledged receipt of the letter but did not answer the question.
The M&G has tried on several occasions to ascertain how many people are bugged in South Africa and has never received a response from the department.
The British government was asked the same questions and e-mailed a breakdown of all telephone and mail interceptions authorised in England, Scotland and Wales between 1937 and 1999. An hour after the query was sent the British government said 1 734 legal interceptions were carried out in England and Wales during 1999, while 288 were authorised in Scotland.
In Britain customs officials, the police and intelligence services can bug telephones but, unlike South Africa, the military have no right to do so.
@Links to ancient man in DNA find?
If the find at a local World Heritage Site is authenticated, it could be the oldest such sample yet extracted
Shaun Smillie
Two researchers claim that they have extracted the DNA of a 1,8-million-year-old hominid from microscopic traces of blood found on stone tools excavated at the Sterkfontein Caves.
It is a discovery, scientists say, that could revolutionise the study of ancient DNA and the origins of mankind.
“The DNA we have found is something between a chimpanzee and a human, which suggests a hominid,” explains Wits University micro archaeologist Bonnie Williamson.
Williamson and Professor Tom Loy of the University of Queensland believe that this DNA sequence is that of either our direct ancestor Homo habilis or Paranthropus robustus. If their findings are verified it would be the oldest DNA yet extracted.
The oldest DNA so far sequenced and independently verified is from a 50 000-year-old woolly mammoth.
“We strongly suspect that the DNA that we have is that of a hominid, but we still want to conduct more research to verify our claim,” says Loy, who plans to publish the findings in a leading scientific journal soon.
The DNA they have sequenced is one base point of that of human DNA. In comparison, the DNA of a chimpanzee, human’s closest relative, is three base points away from that of a human’s.
What Loy feels gives credibility to the research is that both he and Williamson, his PhD student, got the same results using different techniques and working in laboratories on different continents.
Loy had discovered the minute quantities of blood on the Sterkfontein stone tools several years ago while examining them under an electron microscope. “Blood is a remarkably tough residue that can survive for long periods of time. Even artefacts that have been washed in laboratories often still have traces of blood on them,” he says.
To extract the DNA from the blood sample Loy used a technique called polymerase chain reaction to replicate the short strands of DNA. Care had to be taken to avoid modern DNA contamination of the sample.
Some scientists have expressed caution over Loy and Williamson’s claim. There have been false alarms in the study of ancient DNA. In 1995 a scientist announced that he had extracted DNA from an 80-million-year-old dinosaur bone. Other researchers concluded that the dinosaur DNA was that of a mammal.
Even a sneeze or a speck of dust containing human skin or hair can contaminate a sample.
“We took all the necessary precautions, we used bleach to sterilise surfaces and ultraviolet light to destroy any other modern DNA,” says Loy, who in the past 12 years of ancient DNA research has had only one contamination.
“Obtaining DNA that is older than 100 000 years some academics believe is chemically impossible as the DNA has decayed to such an extent.
So far no one has been able to independently authenticate DNA of that age or older. It usually turns out to be a contamination,” says Dr Paulette Bloomer of the department of genetics at the University of Pretoria.
Bloomer was unsuccessful in attempting to extract DNA from a blind sample of primate teeth that she suspected was older than 100 000 years.
But both Bloomer and Professor Terry Robinson of the department of zoology at the University of Stellenbosch believe if the findings are independently verified in another laboratory then the hominid DNA will be the oldest yet extracted and it will be a major breakthrough for science.
“We still want to do more work on the DNA. For one we want to see if we can extract hominid DNA from fossilised teeth ,” Loy says.
Not only suspected hominid blood was identified on the stone tools other residues were also found.
Williamson believes she has extracted the DNA from another blood sample, which she has identified as belonging to the bovid family.
“Also found on the artefacts were samples of bone that suggests these stone tools were used to make and sharpen bone tools.
“We have also identified starch grains from several plant species, including a tuber from the hypoxis family. There is also residue from a number of wooded plants,” says Loy.
Loy believes the hypoxis tuber was dug up and eaten.
“What we are in the process of doing is building up a database of DNA references so that we can identify some of these residues.
“There are plans to collect DNA samples from animals in the San Diego zoo. In November I plan to return to South Africa to do a bit of plant hunting out in the bush.”
If the DNA on the Sterkfontein tools is in fact that of a hominid, palaeontologists will have to do a little detective work to explain how the blood got on to the artefacts.
“Anyone who has tried to make a replica of one of these tools soon realises that it is inevitable that you will nick yourself and bleed. I think that is what happened with these hominids,” Loy speculates.
The site where the tools were found is included in the Sterkfontein valley area that was declared a World Heritage Site by Unesco in 1999.
The Sterkfontein valley is particularly rich in fossils because of its geological conditions. The dolomite caves are slightly alkaline, which preserves bones by encouraging calcification.
@Strangers in their own land
The overwhelming experience among returned exiles is that of isolation and rejection
Barry Streek
Seven years after thousands of South African exiles were repatriated to their country, the majority of them are still experiencing extreme hardships, a research study has found.
A number of subgroups of returned exiles non-South African wives, former soldiers in the liberation armies and the elderly are particularly vulnerable.
The title of the study, In Exile While We Are Still at Home, which was released last week by the Student Services Centre in Cape Town, was taken from an unemployed male respondent.
“I am in exile whilst I am at home,” he said. “I have to hide to my kids because I am not responsible. I lost my love, dignity and respect. My wife is taking care of me whilst I am still fit.”
Matisetso Liholo and Xoliswa Ntgubane interviewed 97 returnees, 13 of whom were born outside the country and most of whom are now resident in the Western Cape.
South Africans left the country to join the liberation movements for a number of reasons, but for most the decision was deliberate.
Few, if any, of those who left South Africa ever saw their exile as permanent, but the liberation struggle went on longer than anyone expected and few predicted the impact this would have on their eventual return home.
Of the respondents, 20 spent between 10 and 19 years outside the country, while 12 spent more than 25 years in exile.
“Because many exiles had become integrated into their countries of exile with their different social and political values and much had changed in South Africa, many viewed their homecoming with mixed expectations,” the report says.
“When asked about their overall experience of returning home, the overwhelming experience among returnees appears to be one of isolation and rejection.”
Several reasons, such as scarcity of jobs, accommodation, finances and opportunity for education, were offered, but from the data it appears the exiles experience their isolation most acutely at the social and economic level.
“Several people complained about being treated as strangers, ‘amakwerekwere’ in their own country, and about the general unfriendliness of South Africans.
“Many were disillusioned that the country was not transformed and that they were still experiencing poverty. Several also felt that they had lost out by going into exile, while friends and peers had gained skills and jobs in their absence.”
The researchers said exiled women experienced a host of difficulties on their return home and in some cases, particularly among younger women, the values and education they had been exposed to abroad was in conflict with family and traditional norms in South Africa.
Women returnees still reported strong feelings of rejection by their families and sometimes by their communities. This was particularly true for non-South African wives.
“A large number of women, particularly coloured women, were actively ostracised from their families and abused for having left with black men and now returning with children from a racially mixed marriage.
“Young males, between 25 and 39 years, several of whom served in the liberation armies, appear to be the most adversely affected. The frustration and disappointment expressed in the interviews shows the feelings of isolation and the perception that their expectations will remain unmet.”
Continued feelings of isolation and being discriminated against had created many social problems.
“In one small community at least four MK [Umkhonto weSizwe soldiers] reportedly died as a result of shooting incidents. Alcohol and substance abuse also appear to accompany the daily lives of many returnees.”
The study concluded the four interventions required by returnees were access to education and training, access to employment, acceptance of foreign qualifications and counselling.
“There is a general sentiment that the greatest need of returned exiles and ex-political prisoners is that they should be respected and that their contribution to the political development of this country should be honoured. Acceptance by and full integration into the communities in which they live will restore dignity to returnees and their repatriation.”
One of the returnees, identified only as Thandi, who left South Africa as a schoolgirl in the 1980s, told a harrowing tale of sexual harassment while a member of MK.
Early in 1991 she was offered a 10-month military training course in the Soviet Union.
“She was the only female in the otherwise all male group. At night her male comrades would take turns to visit her in her room, where they would forcefully make advances.
“She was terrified to report this to the authorities. Who would she single out? All her male comrades were equally guilty and they might gang up on her and brand her a sell-out or even attempt to kill her,” the report says.
@Partnerships change the face of community
Getting people involved in crime prevention has led to a decrease in cases at a Soweto police station
Charlene Smith
Steel crosses are appearing in fields and roadsides all around Meadowlands, Soweto.
One month yellow, then white, now blue … all part of a cleansing ritual for crime survivors initiated by the police chief of the station voted the best in Gauteng this year.
Senior Superintendent Nico Snyman, an MBA graduate, has been at the police station for 18 months and in that time the transformation at the station and in crime statistics in Meadowlands has been dramatic.
A year ago there was an average of 500 crimes a month among the community of 500 000. Now it is down to 450 and dropping. Figures for rape are among the lowest in Soweto, at about 25 a month, and community involvement in policing is among the best in any police precinct in the country.
The streets of Meadowlands, which only a few years ago echoed to gunfire from rival hostel dwellers at Mzimhlope and Dube, or gangsters roaming shadowed areas, are now neat, suburban and placid.
The 700 shebeens in the area all display a laminated code of conduct that they drew up with the police. Tavern owners now frequently stop playing music to announce that women should not leave the shebeen on their own, that no alcohol will be sold to under-aged people, or that if you get drunk and disorderly you’ll be turfed out.
It’s part of a pact with Snyman and his officers who visit the shebeens and taverns regularly.
“We say we will cut down on raids if you ensure we have no need to raid,” Snyman said.
“We have weekly meetings with tavern owners and report back to them that ‘there was an assault or a rape near your shebeen, make sure that you monitor your clients so that we don’t feel the need to monitor them’. And we have tremendous cooperation.”
Anti-crime projects and associations now abound in Meadowlands. There are Garage Owners Against Crime, Churches Against Crime, Taxi Owners Against Crime and the Sabela Mama project, specifically directed against child rape which is possibly their most pervasive and difficult to eradicate crime.
Snyman has coerced money from business to establish an exemplary rape trauma room at the station and private interview rooms for rape survivors. He says 80% of rape in the area is against children younger than 12 and most perpetrators are fathers, brothers or uncles.
“Our problem is that most rapists never get to court,” says victim empowerment coordinator Inspector Phephi Chocho, “because families will accept a payment from the rapist and withdraw the charges or refuse to testify.
“They say it is part of our culture and is cleansing but that is not true. Last month there were 25 rapes; 14 were against children under the age of 17. We arrested all but two perpetrators within two days of the rapes, but charges were withdrawn against nine in court because the families refuse to testify, because they have now accepted money from the perpetrators not to press charges,” Snyman says.
In Meadowlands most rapes by strangers are by single perpetrators rather than gangs (the norm for most of Johannesburg).
Project Nsimbi, where iron crosses are erected at crime sites in a ritual with the police and crime survivor, “is a way of not only helping survivors psychologically, through a further acknowledgement of their suffering; but is also a way of saying to the community: beware, this is a dangerous place,” Snyman says.
“In black culture, when a person dies or a bad thing happens you have a cleansing ceremony to make peace with that place.”
Although the police station has a contract with a local technikon to make the crosses as a job-creation project, the cost of R2 000 a month for 100 crosses is proving to be too expensive for the Meadowlands police station.
The station also has anti-crime committees in schools and among youth groups, the two gangs in Meadowlands are carefully observed and young people keep the police informed of their activities. The police often go into schools and search lunch boxes for drugs and weapons.
“There are some police officers who say we are not social workers, it is not our job to sit down and speak with communities or crime survivors,” Snyman says.
“I disagree, policing is a helping profession, we have a choice of whether to help people or build barriers between them and us. When we help people, we ask them to help us too, and they do.”
He complains that specialised units an approach the police service is moving away from hinder criminal investigation and removes police accountability.
Captain Mark Joseph says: “We have problems with people saying to us, ‘What is happening with the rape investigation charge I laid?’ and we can’t tell them because the case gets referred to Johannesburg. That leads to people not trusting the police and becoming angry because they can’t understand why they are not getting feedback.”
Rules designed to prevent corruption also hamper police community relations.
“We have almost 16 empty rooms at the back of the police station in prefab containers that I would like to use as computer training classes for young people,” Snyman says.
“It is in a safe place, we could have them open 24 hours a day. The computers would not get stolen as they do from schools, but there are new regulations that prevent police from having partnerships.
“For this to be effective we would have to have some sort of relationship with an educational organisation to train the young people. It can get frustrating because we can see the potential of such a project but cannot act.”
Nonetheless, he is still looking at ways of having Saturday schools to help accelerate learning for school pupils at the station.
On Women’s Day, August 9, the station will host a march with a morning of speakers, awards and celebration to mark the 45th anniversary of the day women marched on the Union buildings in Pretoria in protest against passes and with demands for equal rights.
@Coega and the arms deal
Without the one, the other could not have been sold to the public, argues Colm Allan
In late 1999 the government proposed to spend R29,9-billion of South African taxpayers’ money on military hardware. The only way it could attempt to justify such expenditure was through the much-vaunted offset benefits accompanying the deal.
These entailed promises of investment in local industry and the creation of thousands of jobs. The Coega project, the proposed deep-water port and industrial development zone (IDZ) near Port Elizabeth was said to be the primary beneficiary of the offsets and became the flag of convenience for selling the arms purchase to the South African public.
But just as the arms deal could not have been sold to the public without Coega, the reverse is equally true. The South African taxpayer could not have been asked to fund even part of the Coega project without the promise of massive investment from the successful arms suppliers.
After the withdrawal of Billiton as the anchor tenant, the project had all but collapsed. But as one headline put it in June 1999 “Submarine deal resurrects Coega”. Joe Modise, then minister of defence, signed an agreement with the German submarine consortium to procure three vessels for R4,5-billion.
The deal involved an undertaking by Ferrostaal to construct a steel mill at Coega that would create 16 000 jobs. Modise signed off with the German consortium two months before the responsible ministerial committee had been briefed on the economic impact of the arms deal and before the Cabinet approved it.
Public undertakings that Coega would benefit from the arms purchases had started to circulate at least a year earlier. Before the Cabinet even identified the preferred suppliers in November 1998, Paul Jourdan, the director of special projects in the Department of Trade and Industry, was actively selling Coega on the basis of the offsets. In August 1998 he listed Ferrostaal’s R6-billion stainless steel plant and Thyssen’s R1,5-billion galvanised steel mill as key projects for Coega.
Jourdan was a member of the international offers negotiating team given the task of securing the best possible offset arrangements in return for the arms purchases. It now emerges that he is on the board of directors of the Coega Development Corporation (CDC), the private company appointed by the minister of trade and industry to implement Coega.
The chair of the CDC board is Moss Ngoasheng. He was economic adviser to then deputy president Thabo Mbeki during the selection of preferred bidders, the negotiations with suppliers and the awarding of final contracts. Mbeki chaired the ministerial committee that presented the final recommendations on arms procurement to the Cabinet for approval.
CDC has been allocated R185-million in public funds by the Eastern Cape provincial government in this year alone. There is no public record of the amount of funding it has received from national government. But it is apparent that all of CDC’s activities are funded solely out of taxpayers’ money.
However, because CDC is not a “public entity”, its board of directors cannot be held to account by the Auditor General’s office for their use of taxpayers’ money. CDC has no obligation to comply with State Tender Board regulations or the Public Finance Management Act. According to this Act, if the CDC were a public entity, then the members of its board would have to disclose “any direct or indirect personal or private business interest” in any matter before the board and recuse themselves from any decision relating to such interests.
More disturbing, still, is the fact that nearly two years after the government signed the arms deal and handed over billions of South African taxpayers’ rands to the international military suppliers, not a cent has been invested in Coega as a result of the offsets. Nor has a single job been created by the successful consortiums. Ferrostaal has since decided to locate in Middleburg.
Regardless of its abject failure to attract a replacement anchor tenant for the proposed Coega IDZ, the executive arm of government appears bent on forging ahead with the project.
The actual work on development of the infrastructure and construction of the port required for the Coega IDZ started in February this year, although the environmental impact report (EIR), which included an economic feasibility study, was published only last week. Unsurprisingly, it links the viability of the Coega harbour to the viability of the IDZ as a whole. The obvious question raised by this study is whether the Coega IDZ is still feasible without the billions of rands in offset investments.
The answer to this question would appear to be no, with Billiton’s withdrawal and subsequent lack of investor interest in the Coega IDZ, despite CDC’s promises of six-year tax holidays and import and export duty exemptions.
But who is going to pay for the construction of the port and IDZ infrastructure? And who took the decision to proceed with the construction of the port prior to the release of an IDZ feasibility study?
The professed intention of government’s IDZ plan was to “encourage private sector involvement in the provision of infrastructure” in areas of greatest need. IDZs were to be “financed primarily by the private sector with minimal government involvement”.
Jourdan is on record as saying in July 1997 that private investment would be used to construct the Coega project on a “build-operate-transfer” basis. Gill Marcus, then deputy minister of finance, is also on record as saying five months later that the government would contemplate only paying 10% of the infrastructure costs for Coega. Now the taxpayer is being told to foot the bill for 100% of the costs.
Saki Macozoma, when managing director of Transnet, announced in April last year that Transnet would incur the costs for the construction of the Coega harbour and “common infrastructure” later set at R4,65-billion through its subsidiary Portnet. Transnet, a state-owned enterprise, was established out of taxpayers’ money. Any loss or fruitless expenditure that it incurs has to be compensated for out of public funds.
What is of concern is that the Transnet board took the decision to fund the Coega harbour and infrastructure at least a year before the publication of the EIR, which stated: “It is … not recommended that the port be built if the IDZ is not viable, as expansion of the container handling capacity in South Africa could be undertaken through the expansion of the port of Richards Bay.”
After Billiton and Ferrostaal withdrew from Coega, Transnet did not find it necessary to obtain a new feasibility study for the IDZ. Yet, disturbingly, the Transnet board still ratified and agreed to finance the construction of the port.
At the time of the decision to pay for the construction of the Coega port, Mafika Mkwanazi, the Transnet deputy managing director, was a direct beneficiary of the arms deal. He is a shareholder and director of Kgorong Investment Holdings which secured a R220-million sub-contract to provide tracking radar on the corvettes as part of a joint venture with European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (Eads) and South African defence supplier Reunert.
Equally disturbing is the fact that tenders have been awarded by the CDC to companies with which Safika, CDC chairperson Ngoasheng’s private company, has business relationships. Safika owns a 51% share in a joint venture with a Dutch firm of consulting engineers DHV and Stewart Scott consulting engineers called Safika-DHV. It’s worth noting that Macozoma bought a 10% stake in Safika after his resignation from Transnet.
The Public Service Accountability Monitor (PSAM), in terms of the Promotion of Access to Information Act, has requested information from the CDC in respect of all of the tenders that it has issued and all contracts it has awarded. But after two months PSAM has not received so much as a written acknowledgement.
If the Coega project is to have any form of credibility, it is vital to establish whether Ngoasheng, as CDC chair, declared his private interests and recused himself where his business partners were awarded contracts.
Modise’s role is also worth examining. In 1998 he resurrected Coega by his premature agreement with the German submarine consortium. After his resignation as defence minister he bought shares in and was appointed chair of a company that has been awarded contracts to conduct work on the Coega project.
Modise is the head of Harambee Investment Holdings, which bought a 30% share in the BKS group in August last year. BKS, one of South Africa’s biggest firms of consulting engineers, established and partially owns a company called Khuthele Projects. In November 1999 the CDC announced that it had appointed Khuthele Projects as the engineering consultants responsible for conducting the integrated transportation study for the Coega IDZ. Modise effectively ends up benefiting financially as a businessman from a decision he made while he was a Cabinet minister.
What we would appear to be witnessing is a situation in which taxpayers’ money is being used to fund infrastructure for companies and individuals, such as Modise, who have risked no capital at all yet stand to reap financial benefits.
If the Coega project is to meet its objectives, then the procedures used to establish the Port and IDZ and the grounds for its economic viability must be beyond reproach. This is particularly the case if the CDC hopes to attract private investors to Coega.
Colm Allan is director of the Public Service Accountability Monitor at Rhodes University. For a longer version visit www.psam.ru.ac.za
@A potential Pandora’s box
The conference on racism could turn from a good idea into a charade
WITH THE LID OFF
John Matshikiza
I wonder how nervous the South African government and the peace-loving people of Durban are about the forthcoming conference on racism, scheduled for the Banana City at the end of August.
In the past two years international conferences on just about everything have been dogged by a rolling pack of a thousand or so professional, hard-core international rioters who incite tens of thousands of humble local citizens to trash their own cities, protesting about almost anything from the compulsory spread of Coca-Cola to the withdrawal of pooper-scoopers from the streets of Paris.
The thing is that the people are up in arms again, and they will find all sorts of reasons to be revolting.
If an abstract idea like globalisation can bring out all this rude behaviour, think about what an emotional issue like race and racism could do.
The idea of a conference about racism originally seemed like a mighty good idea.
Initially, black people from Africa, Jamaica, the United States and so on thought the Durban conference was going to be all about them. Finally, the world was going to have to sit up and pay attention to the age-old trauma of being black.
Then everybody else started getting in on the act to such an extent that the conference has reached a level of white-heat debate six weeks before it even begins. The Arabs started talking about Zionism, so Israel threatened to boycott the conference. The Greeks started talking about the Turks, and the Turks brought up the issue of the Greeks. Africa and the African diaspora banged on about slavery and reparations, and the Western nations that were basically bankrolling the whole thing threatened to withdraw unless the issue of reparations was firmly excluded. Besides, they said, how can you talk about slavery when slavery is basically alive and kicking all over Africa, long after we’ve packed up and left you guys alone?
The preamble to the conference has rapidly become an unmanageable basket of sensitive counter-accusations.
The danger is that, as in premature ejaculation, the core issues intended for discussion will be spent before the summit gets off the ground, and there will be nothing left for the various factions to do but go rioting around the KwaZulu-Natal capital, tearing each other and the city of Durban apart. (And bear in mind that Durban itself already has its fair share of implacable racial complications.)
World Conference on Racism is only shorthand for the full title of the conference: The United Nations World Conference against racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance. (That little “related intolerance” phrase at the end alone opens up the potential for a Pandora’s box of UN subcommittees, resolutions and declarations that will get us nowhere.)
With such a mouthful of issues to clobber in the short space of a week, and taking into account the UN’s usual level of efficiency, aplomb and effectiveness, prospects for a triumphant outcome become increasingly remote. And yet the heat is still rising, and the level of debate becomes increasingly bizarre.
In his latest column, in a daily paper that I shall refrain from identifying for professional reasons (except to say it’s named after one of those things you can see up in the sky on a clear night), Mathatha Tsedu, the SABC’s new deputy CEO: news, opens up with the following statement:
“Africa is a very unfortunate continent where sharks of different hues come to forage for riches whenever it suits them. It is not a new phenomenon, and started with the invasion of the Arabs in the north who settled there and have now essentially colonised the north and turned it into an Arab island …” He goes on to say that Europeans came not far behind, and thus Africa’s woes began.
Now, there are certain indignant sentiments that we all used to articulate in our rock-throwing days at high school, but I think we used to get most of our historical and geographical facts pretty straight. If you’re going to be angry about something, it should be something that is reasonably true. That way, there is something to argue about when the authorities finally come to talk to you to find a solution.
In Tsedu’s case, we find a complete rewriting of history, as well as a rearranging of geography, which nobody in their right mind could sit down and make the basis of a discussion.
I have always thought that the people we call Arabs penetrated subtly and gradually into sub-Saharan Africa on missions of trade (yes, indeed, in slaves, but among other things as well) but also as evangelists for the Islamic cause, and as searchers for and bringers of know-ledge. I have never thought of the Arab world as anything other than a part of the wondrous variety of the African continent.
And there’s the rub. If we are searching for a deeper truth at the Durban conference, where do we draw the lines? At what point do the victims of racial discrimination themselves become the agents of “xenophobia and related intolerance”?
Tsedu’s real target is Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi a man who manifestly puts his money where his mouth is and his engagement in the newly formed African Union. His closing shot is to ask African leaders when they will finally come to their senses and treat Gaddafi and “the Arab north as colonised territory that must be liberated”. Africa, he seems to be saying, has to be black up to the eyebrows before it is free.
And yet, while the North baulks at the idea of reparations, and the South starts to demand that Arabs be included in the concept of repaying old debts, Gaddafi is spending serious oil money in Africa. Tsedu objects to this as well. Do we really know what it is we want?
And so I just wonder how much more of this kind of weird stuff is going to emerge before and during the Durban conference, and add to the confusion that will turn an initially good idea into a charade.