/ 23 May 2006

A taste of prison for Travelgate accused

A former boss of one of the travel agencies implicated in the parliamentary travel voucher scam spent an hour-and-a-half behind bars on Monday for his lack of co-operation in a liquidation inquiry.

David Phokeng, an ex-director of the now-liquidated Bathong Travel, was detained in the holding cells of the Bellville Magistrate’s Court at the request of the attorney acting for the liquidators, Bernhard Kurz.

Kurz told magistrate Mannie van Reenen that millions of rands had flowed out of Bathong into Phokeng’s own pocket, and that R800 000 had been ”wiped off” Phokeng’s loan account with the company in a single year through journal adjustments.

He said Phokeng had defied an order made by the court at a previous hearing to sign letters giving the liquidators access to banking records at First National and Mercantile Bank, and provide other information.

Phokeng protested that he was not a signatory to the Mercantile account. Kurz however promptly produced copies of cheques that he had signed along with Bathong co-director Mpho Lebelo.

”I think Mr Phokeng is trifling with us,” Kurz told magistrate Van Reenen. ”I think he thinks this is a joke.”

Van Reenen said: ”I agree with Mr Kurz’s application. One doesn’t trifle with orders, one doesn’t play around with orders being issued by a presiding officer.”

He said Phokeng would be incarcerated until he was prepared to explain how he would comply with the order.

Phokeng emerged from the cells area an hour-and-a-half later to sign letters giving access to bank statements, and promising to provide information within a week on his loan account entries.

An Inkatha Freedom Party MP from Gauteng, Bonginkosi Dhlamini, told the hearing that he had no idea how R145 000 worth of air tickets, which no-one actually flew on, came to be issued in return for his parliamentary travel vouchers and paid for by Parliament.

Kurz said Bathong claimed refunds on the tickets which it did not repay to Parliament.

Over a one-and-a-half year period well over 70 tickets were issued on Dhlamini’s warrants, but not flown on, he said.

Asking Dhlamini whether it had ever happened that Bathong booked the most expensive tickets in his name, then cancelled them and bought cheaper tickets with part of the cash, Kurz said the MP and his dependants had flown on R36 000 worth of other tickets for which nobody had ever been invoiced by Bathong.

”I really don’t know. I don’t understand how I get to fly without issuing a voucher,” said Dhlamini.

”That’s my question, Mr Dhlamini. I’m looking for an answer,” said Kurz.

Asked about a R9 742 Avis car hire bill he had incurred over a period of just under one month, which was invoiced to Bathong, he said he used Bathong to arrange car hire when he needed it, and that in this case he had repaid Bathong in cash ”out of my savings for the holidays”.

He was unsure whether he had the receipt, as he had lost some receipts when he moved offices.

Bathong co-director Lebelo told the hearing the ticket refunds had been used to fund Dhlamini’s ”land arrangements”, including car hire and hotel accommodation.

However Kurz said the liquidators had written to every car hire firm in South Africa and virtually every hotel, and that even if what she said was correct, there was still a discrepancy of R98 000.

”I don’t know what you don’t have, but surely you don’t have all the records,” said Lebelo.

Kurz said that for just three of the 67 MPs on Bathong’s books for whom refunds were claimed, there was about R500 000 missing.

”So I don’t buy the glib, dismissive statement [that] ‘you don’t have all the records’,” he said.

No other travel agency that the liquidators had been dealing with in the Travelgate case had claimed so many refunds. ”You are the queen of refunds,” he said.

Lebelo, who like Phokeng appeared without an attorney, at one point protested that she was uncomfortable answering Kurz’s questions in the light of her pending criminal trial.

Former IFP MP Maxwell Sibiya told the hearing he found it ”shocking” to learn that on one day alone, August 20 2002, three tickets worth a total of R8 900 were issued for his daughter on the basis of his signed parliamentary vouchers, and not flown on.

On another day, according to Kurz, eight tickets worth R25 000 were issued on his account and all cancelled.

Kurz said the 70 issued-and-cancelled tickets on Sibiya’s account represented more than a year’s worth of travel vouchers, and made his cancellations total the second highest of all MPs.

”Sir, I swear to you, I don’t know about this, really. I never received anything from this Bathong Travel. Nothing,” said Sibiya.

Asked about a number of expensive tickets booked in his own name in December 2002, he said MPs would rush to spend unused travel vouchers at the end of a year before they expired.

”That was not very nice,” said Kurz. – Sapa