A Home Affairs decision which some say had more to do with influence-mongering than an impartial application of the rules has been rescinded
Stefaans Brmmer
Minister of Home Affairs Mangosuthu Buthelezi late this week overruled his own director general to allow a top mining executive back into South Africa. Mark Wellesley-Wood, a British citizen, had controversially been barred re-entry a week earlier after he clashed with an influential local mining figure.
Wellesley-Wood is chairperson and chief executive of Durban Roodepoort Deep (DRD), reported to be South Africa’s fourth- and the world’s 13th-largest gold producer. It is listed on a number of international bourses and is majority foreign-owned. It is feared that investor confidence was damaged by perceptions that the Department of Home Affairs’s decision to bar the mining executive was arbitrary and excessive.
Wellesley-Wood joined the DRD board two years ago as non-executive chairperson, with the specific brief to improve corporate governance. He was appointed chief executive last April. His investigations into irregularities at the mining house led him to cross swords with Roger Kebble, his deputy at DRD and one of South Africa’s more colourful mining figures.
Wellesley-Wood left South Africa for his United Kingdom home last Thursday. He told the Mail & Guardian he was called that Friday by a City Press reporter who “seemed to have been briefed by home affairs” and who told him he would not be allowed to re-enter South Africa. “It threw me completely. I didn’t know [this].”
On Sunday City Press ran an article with leaked information on Wellesley-Wood’s R22-million-a-year DRD package and quoting “a fuming” Billy Masetlha, the director general of home affairs, as saying he had ordered the ban as Wellesley-Wood disregarded immigration rules. Masetlha was also quoted as saying: “This is the type of business executive that [certain sections of] South Africa loves. This is an executive who expects to be treated with kid gloves.”
A subsequent home affairs press release said DRD was told on January 16 that Wellesley-Wood would have to apply for a work permit as he had become executive chairperson, and that he and the company would be liable to prosecution should he continue to work in the meantime. “Mr Wellesley-Wood was subsequently found to be working in South Africa and in view of that he was requested to leave the country He was also declared a prohibited person.”
But on Thursday this week, Buthelezi overruled Masetlha’s decision an intervention that accentuates the protracted battle between the minister and his department head. Buthelezi, the Inkatha Freedom Party leader, has resented having foisted on him as director general an African National Congress heavyweight with a security background.
Last year Buthelezi accused Masetlha of some 60 breaches of discipline and said he had no valid contract. A bipartisan committee of political heavyweights, appointed by President Thabo Mbeki, has produced no resolution.
Wellesley-Wood and DRD’s defence against charges that he broke immigration law has been that after the home affairs letter of January 16 he complied by applying for a work permit at the South African high commission in London on February 1; and that the high commission issued him a letter allowing him to visit South Africa “for holiday and business purposes whilst your application is being processed”.
The M&G has obtained a copy of the letter, which also states that Wellesley-Wood was “however not allowed to proceed for the purpose of taking up employment whilst your application is pending”.
Wellesley-Wood subsequently continued performing his DRD duties in South Africa. Whether he actually broke immigration law may well be a matter of interpretation: was he “taking up employment”, which he was not allowed to do, or was he merely visiting for “business purposes”, which he was allowed to do? Whichever way, Masetlha’s tirade and the decision to prohibit Wellesley-Wood in fact he was put on the immigration “stop list” was arguably an excessive response.
A statement which the ministry issued on Thursday to the M&G, on behalf of Buthelezi, agreed: “Placing a name on the ‘stop list’ is a serious matter and should only be taken after considering all the facts in an objective manner, bearing in mind the consequences that could arise. Foreign investor perception should be a major concern in this case.”
The statement said Buthelezi’s inspection of the Wellesley-Wood file showed that “there is enough evidence on file that the applicant and DRD at all times showed their cooperation. If there was confusion in the mind of the applicant whether a work permit or a business permit was required, then the department at least caused some of that confusion.”
In a letter on Thursday to his department, Buthelezi instructed that Wellesley-Wood’s name be removed from the stop list and that “expedited consideration” be given to Wellesley-Wood’s work permit application. And in a jab at Masetlha, he wrote: “My decision is also motivated by the need to redress certain public statements reportedly made about [Wellesley-Wood] and his situation by the department’s director general, which were inappropriate for a civil servant and, partially, do not relate to our department’s line function responsibility.”
If, as Buthelezi now seems to agree, the action against Wellesley-Wood was excessive, what lay behind it? Fingers in the pro-Wellesley-Wood camp at DRD immediately pointed at Roger Kebble, Wellesley-Wood’s deputy at DRD.
Kebble and his son, Brett, are perhaps best known for their bafflingly complex interests in an array of mining companies, and for the younger Kebble’s role, alongside empowerment scion Mzi Khumalo, in the collapse of investment house JCI. Then, as in a share scandal involving Harmony and Randfontein gold producers in 2000, serious questions were asked regarding the Kebble business ethic.
M&G understands that the battle between Wellesley-Wood and Roger Kebble has brewed since at least before Christmas when it became clear there would have to be a parting of ways. That Kebble’s position had been cloaked in uncertainty for some time seems to be confirmed by a reading of share transactions in just over a month until last Friday, the day Wellesley-Wood was placed on the stop list, Kebble sold R12,8-million worth of DRD shares. One insider likened this to Kebble either “cashing up” or preparing for a final showdown with Wellesley-Wood.
Wellesley-Wood’s fight with Kebble has been mainly over two issues: R32-million that companies in the Kebble stable allegedly owe DRD and over which legal action is pending; and the 1999 attempted sale of interests in the “dud” Indonesian Rawas gold mine to DRD. Kebble companies were allegedly to benefit from this deal, while DRD says it had to write off R121-million. The DRD board suspended Roger Kebble on Monday at Wellesley-Wood’s behest and pending completion of an inquiry into the Rawas transaction.
The Kebbles have, over the years, been allied with a number of politically influential businesspeople, including Mzi Khumalo and Wiseman Nkuhlu, the latter now presidential economics advisor. But their ways have parted and not necessarily amicably. Roger Kebble is, however, close to Lizo Njenje, who sits on the boards of a number of Kebble companies and on that of DRD. Njenje, like Masetlha, was a senior member of the ANC’s intelligence apparatus during the 1990-1994 period.
Njenje denied this week having had contact with Masetlha since 1994.
Masetlha could not be reached for comment.