The South African Communist Party (SACP) is keeping under wraps the details of an investigation into whether its general secretary, Blade Nzimande, took and failed to pass on a R500Â 000 donation from businessman Charles Modise.
Even officials on the party’s central executive committee were not given copies of a report by chartered accountants SAB&T, which investigated Nzimande’s finances after allegations made by Modise and axed Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) president Willie Madisha that Nzimande had failed to pass on the cash, delivered in black garbage bags, to the party.
The officials had access only to the findings of the report, which cleared Nzimande on the basis that ”no tangible and corroborating evidence could be located and/or traced so as to substantiate the allegation made by Mr Madisha”.
The central committee, in a statement read by deputy general secretary Jeremy Cronin, nevertheless called on the police ”to investigate the probability that both Modise and Madisha have involved themselves in serious perjury”.
Madisha, however, stands by his story, and this week suggested to Independent Newspapers that he might take court action over what he called ”defamatory” allegations.
The SACP has declined to release a copy of the SAB&T report, saying the party does not need to defend itself against allegations that have been proved wrong.
”The report was not distributed to the central committee [CC] as the SACP felt that there were certain aspects that needed to be pursued further. The national treasurer did brief the central committee on the principal findings of the report and the CC accepted the findings. We are satisfied that the substance of the findings will not be affected by the aspects still to be followed up,” party spokesperson Malesela Maleka said.
The snippet quoted by the central committee on Monday, however, is seen by Madisha’s backers as evidence that the auditors were less than rigorous: ”Other possible witnesses mentioned by Madisha in his various statements could not be interviewed as Madisha would not direct us to them. It would not have been financially judicious to make more effort to trace these possible witnesses as their possible contribution/s to a more positive conclusion of the investigation is seriously doubted,” SAB&T said.
”If it was cash, you aren’t going to find a record of it that easily,” responded one party insider sympathetic to Madisha.
The firm was also not asked to investigate claims by the party’s former treasurer, Phillip Dexter, that Nzimande failed to pass on two other donations, each of R300Â 000 from Limpopo provincial secretary Justice Pitso.
Dexter made the claims in a financial report that party brass prevented him from presenting at the SACP congress last year. Dexter was suspended and faces a party disciplinary hearing for leaking a document he wrote questioning the direction of the party.
Maleka said SAB&T had not been asked to investigate these allegations because Dexter had never raised them with the party. They remained hearsay.
Three people who were present at a meeting where the two R300Â 000 donations were discussed confirm that Pitso acknowledged the donations. Pitso has repeatedly denied this, and last week told the Mail & Guardian: ”I don’t know what you are talking about.”
A commission of inquiry established by Cosatu to examine whether Madisha had brought the union federation into disrepute was more circumspect than the SAB&T report, saying that the ”truthfulness of the president’s version on the handing over of the donation is not at issue here — the focus of the investigation — is not based on resolving the dispute of fact that exists between him and the general secretary of the SACP — the commission is not enjoined to investigate whether in fact the money was handed over in the manner described by the president — and it accordingly makes no finding in that regard”.
The commission, chaired by mediator Charles Nupen, did find that Madisha had brought Cosatu into disrepute, and that trust between him and Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi had broken down irretrievably. The union’s central executive committee responded by axing Madisha as president.
Unmentioned in the commission’s report is the fact that Modise’s wife, Hloni, offered corroborating testimony. ”I told them how my husband informed me that he had been approached about a donation, and about two weeks later he told me he had handed it over,” she said.
She also told the commission that she had attended an SACP lunch at the Birchwood Hotel where Modise was formally introduced to Nzimande. ”At the lunch [Nzimande] shook Charles’s hand and thanked him,” she told the M&G.
Nzimande has consistently denied meeting Modise or receiving the money.
Modise’s wife told the M&G that she had set out this version of events in a sworn affidavit.
Modise himself is in a Kimberley jail awaiting trial on charges of fraud. He has been denied bail on the basis that he has Malawian travel documents and is a flight risk.
The charges against him relate to allegations of massive corruption involving consulting work awarded to his Sedibeng Construction by then Northern Cape minister for transport and public works John Block.
Modise told the M&G from prison this week that he believes the charges against him were trumped up as part of a complex conspiracy involving the African National Congress and SACP leadership in the province, and insisted that he wanted to go to court to clear his name.