Flowers for his ‘engel’

‘Ek het jou lief, my engel [I love you, my angel]. They say absence makes the heart grow fonder. It is very true. I am missing u badly. I will love you always.”

These are some of the messages Xolani Mkhwanazi, CEO of the state’s National Electricity Regulator (NER), asked florists to attach to flowers he bought for his female companion, using taxpayers’ funds.

The ‘engel” in Mkhwanazi’s heart is Dr Snowy Khoza, the NER’s former GM in charge of research and development. Repeated attempts by the Mail & Guardian to obtain Mkhwanazi’s comment did not bear fruit.

Khoza said she could not comment about flowers. She said the investigators had interviewed her in the past week, but they did not raise the issue of flowers with her. ‘I wish not to comment about that. I would like to allow the investigation to take its course and for the report to be made available,” she said.

The M&G reported recently that Mkhwanazi, who is being probed for alleged impropriety by public service investigators, used the parastatal’s Diners’ Club credit card to buy items from bookshops and florists.

He spent between R200 and R1 000 each month at a florist and used the card to pay for hotel accommodation in Pretoria, where he lives. Last March his credit card expenses cost the NER about R80 000 and in May about R26 000. More than R120 000 was spent within nine months last year. Mkhwanazi spent between R8 000 and R80 000 every month on the credit card. Some of the expenses were incurred while on sponsored trips, such as one to Norway last September.

At the time Mkhwanazi denied the allegations, saying the claims were orchestrated by individuals opposed to his restructuring plans. He said he bought the flowers for NER stakeholders and denied using the credit card for personal gain. But a delivery list from Eros Florist in Pretoria shows that Mkhawanazi ordered flowers for Khoza using the parastatal’s credit card.

One bunch of flowers, which cost R400, was accompanied by a message: ‘Even though I am miles away I can’t stop thinking about you. It’s just a matter of days. I will always love you forever.”

NER is a statutory body established to license all electricity suppliers and to regulate electricity prices. It reports to Minister of Minerals and Energy Affairs Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka.

The probe into the NER was ordered by Mlambo-Ngcuka’s director general, Sandile Nogxina, after the minister received anonymous documents accusing Mkhwanazi of corruption.

The documents alleges that Mkhwanazi used the parastatal’s Diners’ Club credit card to entertain members of his family, appointed his friends to senior positions, gave his friends irregular salary increases, used consultants to spy on employees and spent tens of thousands of rands on furniture for his and the chairperson’s office.

It also alleges that he caused the NER to lose millions of rands on a building he bought for the agency in Pretoria, that he failed to follow the government’s procurement policies when acquiring the building, that he made irregular loans to NER employees and that he undertook a private trip to Brazil at the NER’s expense.

The document alleges Mkhwanazi ‘organises his own salary increase and annual incentive bonus, with the complicity of the chairman of the board”. Last year Mkhwanazi got a performance bonus of 23% of his total package, and an increase of 8,5% to compensate for inflation, which boosted his salary to R900 000.

Mkhwanazi has denied all the allegations. At the end of February he gave the M&G a ‘confidential letter” he wrote on December 5 to NER chair Collin Matjila in response to the allegations.

In his letter Mkhwanazi said he did not believe in responding to anonymous documents but that he had chosen to do so in the interest of transparency and accountability.

He said he had received other anonymous letters accusing him of corruption. In the past the NER’s board had appointed internal auditors to probe allegations of corruption against him and other senior managers — Khoza; Wolsely Barnard, the executive manager for regulation; and Kevin Morgan, the general counsel.

‘The audit completely exonerated all of us,” Mkhwanazi wrote. The anonymous allegations claim Mkhwanazi and the board had ‘whitewashed themselves” in the first probe and that Mlambo-Ngcuka had erred by allowing the ‘board to investigate themselves”, instead of taking ‘immediate decisive action”.

The M&G this week learned that the current investigation was nearing completion. The investigators would submit a report to Mlambo-Ngcuka in the next few days.

Insiders close to the probe told the M&G the investigators have found that Mkhwanazi used taxpayers’ funds for personal use. He also failed to account to investigators for credit card expenses at Pretoria hotels and expensive restaurants.

Mkhwanazi has failed to provide proof that he often used the card to pay for hotel accommodation in Pretoria for NER guests. One insider said: ‘The ball is now in Mlambo-Ngcuka’s court. She would have to show that she does not condone corruption and the plunder of public resources for personal gain by imposing harsh sanctions against Mkhwanazi. This would send a clear message to others that government does not tolerate any form of corrupt actions.”

A spokesperson for the department, Kanyo Gqula, confirmed the investigation is nearing completion and the report would be submitted to the director general.