Politicians, including Free State Premier Beatrice Marshoff, have formally acknowledged they owe the defunct Bathong travel agency tens of thousands of rands, a liquidation inquiry heard on Wednesday.
Bathong is one of the agencies targeted by the Scorpions in their probe into the alleged abuse of parliamentary travel vouchers, and Bathong director Mpho Lebelo will be in the dock along with more than two dozen current and former MPs on Monday when their criminal trial begins in the Cape High Court.
Bernhard Kurz, attorney for the liquidators, told presiding Magistrate Mannie van Reenen on Wednesday that Marshoff, a former MP, had admitted that just under R8 000 of the claim against her had been private, not parliamentary travel, and had acknowledged that she owed this amount.
If she did not pay the money by the end of next week, the liquidators would issue summons, Kurz said.
Marshoff appeared briefly at an earlier sitting of the inquiry in May, and had been expected to take the stand again at the inquiry on Wednesday.
However, she did not arrive, instead submitting an affidavit saying she had been summoned to an extended Cabinet lekgotla in Pretoria.
At Kurz’s request, Van Reenen warned the premier through her attorney, who was in court, to appear on October 5.
Kurz then interrogated another politician, African National Congress MP Tsietsi Louw, about a car hire bill of over R100 000, including a claim of R62 541 against Bathong from Avis for a car damaged in an accident while Louw was driving.
He asked Louw why he had not agreed to a proposal that he start paying back the amount at R2 500 a month, and Louw said the liquidators had wanted him to pay that amount each month for six months, then settle the full outstanding amount in one go, which he could not afford.
He told Kurz he did not own a car or a house, and that he lived in his mother’s home.
The only jewellery he owned was his watch.
”So you have no assets?” asked Kurz.
”Yes, you can just go and check,” replied Louw.
However, questioned on how he spent his monthly salary, he said he was building a house of his own on a plot in Danielskuil, and under further questioning conceded that he owned the land on which the building was taking place.
After an adjournment, Kurz told the magistrate Louw was being given two weeks to find out from Avis why it was claiming the cost of the accident from Bathong rather than its insurers, and to put in place an arrangement to start making repayments on the remaining amount at R5 000 a month.
Free State provincial minister of sport and culture Susan Mnumzana, a former MP, told the inquiry she would repay R2 238 outstanding on travel vouchers where she had been required to make a part-payment.
Kurz said he also wanted to know about a R20 200 car hire bill in her name, for which there was no record of any payments made to Bathong, flights worth R32 700 on which she and family members had flown but which were never paid for, and another R131 000 in respect of tickets which were never flown on.
He suggested she get some ”serious legal advice”.
Mnumzana was warned to appear again on October 5.
Also on Wednesday, Bonginkosi Dhlamini, an Inkatha Freedom Party MP from Gauteng, signed an acknowledgement of debt of R71 000, and former ANC MP Muntu Ntuli did the same for an amount of R11 573. — Sapa