Anti-apartheid sports hero Ronnie Watson’s Johannesburg home was raided on Thursday by police investigating fraud and company law charges against colourful mining magnate Roger Kebble. This followed claims by Kebble that Watson was the real recipient of R6,3-million that is in dispute; and that the money was legitimate, if covert, payment for ”strategic services”.
Former Durban Roodepoort Deep executive chairperson Kebble (63) was arrested by commercial crime detectives in Johannesburg on Monday night. He spent the night in custody before being released on R250 000 bail pending a hearing in January. Durban Roodepoort Deep is one of the country’s top gold producers.
Central to the charges is Durban Roodepoort Deep’s payment of R6,3-million over a number of years during Kebble’s tenure to Skilled Labour Brokers — Kebble’s own company. Durban Roodepoort Deep, under Kebble’s successor Mark Wellesley-Wood, brought the charges.
Kebble’s arrest reignited a bitter public slanging match between both men. For the second time this year there are accusations that one abused the might of the state to get at the other.
”It is a measure of the man [Wellesley-Wood] that he has resorted to the shabby and desperate stratagem of trying to have the state prosecute me because of a boardroom dispute,” Kebble said in a statement on Tuesday.
These were rich words, cynics may argue, from the man who was accused in March of influencing Department of Home Affairs officials to declare Wellesley-Wood, a United Kingdom citizen, a prohibited immigrant. Minister of Home Affairs Mangosuthu Buthelezi later overruled that prohibition.
But it is not only state agents whose actions are up for scrutiny. Kebble’s defence, the Mail & Guardian has learned from sources close to him, is that Skilled Labour Brokers was merely a front to channel money covertly to Watson as payment for Watson’s ”strategic services”. Kebble, in short, will argue that he did not benefit but was merely a conduit; that this arrangement was common knowledge at Durban Roodepoort Deep; and that the latter got ”value for its money”.
Confirmation of Watson’s ”services” — said to include keeping tabs on the Durban Roodepoort Deep workforce — is likely to embarrass Kebble and members of the former board who were in the know. Asked one Kebble opponent: ”How does the National Union of Mineworkers regard all of this?”
It may prove equally embarrassing to Watson, one of four Eastern Cape rugby-playing brothers who became heroes of non-racial sport in the mid-1970s when they shunned whites-only competition. Watson joined the African National Congress underground and was close to Umkhonto weSizwe leader Chris Hani.
Watson failed to return calls this week but Kebble’s spokesperson David Barritt said after the Thursday raid on Watson’s home: ”Watson is incensed and outraged. He has been charged with no crime.”
During the raid the same detectives who arrested Kebble were accompanied by auditors looking for evidence in the Kebble matter.
A member of the Wellesley-Wood camp this week confirmed they were aware of Kebble’s defence, but said Kebble would have to prove all the money indeed flowed to Watson and that Kebble pocketed none.
And yet, the high ground in this dispute is hard to find. The new Durban Roodepoort Deep board under Wellesley-Wood earlier this year unleashed private investigation firm Associated Intelligence Network (AIN) on Kebble in an effort to discover the destination of the R6,3-million. AIN has previously courted controversy over its alleged attempts to exploit the inside track it obtains by employing former police officers.
Kebble this week fired off letters to police National Commissioner Jackie Selebi, Minister of Safety and Security Charles Nqakula and Minister of Intelligence Lindiwe Sisulu, claiming AIN had irregularly drawn or tried to draw his cellphone and banking records and influenced police investigators to arrest him. In his statement on Tuesday Kebble claimed AIN ”was retained by Durban Roodepoort Deep to conduct a campaign against me”.
Kebble’s lawyers are composing a detailed dossier they want to give to Selebi. On Thursday rumours did the rounds that charges against Kebble may be withdrawn over ”procedural irregularities”.
All of which adds up to a dirty fight that, ironically, began after Kebble and his son, Brett, brought Wellesley-Wood to Durban Roodepoort Deep to improve corporate governance.
By late last year Wellesley-Wood was taking his brief seriously enough to turn the spotlight on Kebble himself. He was, among other things, less than impressed with Kebble’s role in a R122-million deal to buy a ”dud” gold mine in Indonesia and another where Durban Roodepoort Deep paid a massive premium for Australian gold-mine shares.
In both cases, Wellesley-Wood maintained, the Kebbles rather than Durban Roodepoort Deep benefited.
Even Kebble sympathisers agree he is no angel. One said this week: ”If I wanted to hire someone to dig a hole in the ground and take gold out of it, I’d hire Kebble. If I wanted to hire someone to run a board, Kebble would be banned from the building.”
But whether Kebble is a criminal rather than a cutter of corporate corners still needs to be proved — and that is for the courts.