As criminal proceedings hang over 40 MPs linked to Travelgate, Parliament’s multimillion-rand travel voucher scam, liquidation hearings that could implicate a further 70 parliamentarians are stuck in the Cape High Court.
The 40 MPs currently involved in plea bargaining negotiations with the Scorpions were clients of two travel agencies that have been liquidated. The liquidation enabled the state’s prosecutors to acquire information to implicate the 40.
But what has fallen under the national radar is the fact that 70 MP clients of Graham Geduldt’s Star Travel Bureau may still face fraud charges, which the Scorpions have been unable to investigate since Geduldt is fighting liquidation.
Geduldt, one of the seven travel agents charged last year in connection with the estimated R17-million travel fraud, continues to fight the winding down of his business in the high court. Next week he must defend legal action over his alleged failure to pay liquidators R335 000, which had been deposited into his personal bank account by, among others, government departments.
Most of the 40 MPs, whose plea and sentencing agreements were thrashed out behind closed doors earlier this week, have been linked to two other travel agencies involved in the scam. ITC and Business Executive Travel have been liquidated and their directors arrested.
Geduldt’s bid to stave off the appointment of liquidator Eileen Fey failed in November, but an application to appeal is pending. The finalisation or rejection of his provisional liquidation has been set for April. The questioning of Geduldt during his company’s insolvency inquiry was postponed earlier this month after he applied for a court review of the decision to convene this hearing under a clause of the Insolvency Act.
After his Star Travel Bureau was placed in provisional liquidation, Geduldt continued to collect monies owed to it. This money was paid into his personal bank account and only R1,02-million of the R1,34-million collected was paid over to liquidators, who now want the balance.
For more than 18 months the Travelgate criminal investigations and liquidation hearings have run parallel through a complex legal web involving tens of thousands of suspicious transactions, each with its own paper trail. While it is the high-profile criminal charges that have captured the national imagination, the liquidation hearings also reveal a lot.
This week liquidators served summonses on eight MPs and a former MP for failing to stick to agreements to repay travel debt. They include African National Congress Women’s League secretary general Bathabile Dlamini and MPs Mnyamezeli Booi, Barbara Thompson, Patrick Maloyi and Sophia Maine.
Their names have cropped up repeatedly in the scam: they were said to be among the 23 interviewed by the Scorpions late last year. The identities of 27 serving MPs and 13 former parliamentarians have been shrouded in secrecy.
But this week Democratic Alliance MP Craig Morkel took voluntary suspension after his attorney was informed that he is among the 40 MPs the Scorpions intend to prosecute.