The deputy director general of the North West department of agriculture, Paul Mogotlhe, has an extraordinarily close relationship with the recipient of a R1,1-million provincial government grant his department approved. It is none other than himself.
The Mail & Guardian has a copy of the memorandum of agreement, signed in May this year by Mogotlhe both as the government official who authorised the grant and the owner of Thathana Farms, near Zeerust — the beneficiary.
Last year the national Department of Land Affairs gave him R354 927 for a land-reform project at the same farm. Thathana, a livestock farm, made it to question time in the National Assembly, where it was upheld as one of North West province’s land-reform projects.
Thathana was registered in May 2006 with Mogotlhe and five other family members as owners. He had started his job at the agriculture department two months earlier. According to his financial disclosure statement form, he holds 65% of the shares in the family business. Land Bank funds were also allegedly allocated to him to acquire the farm.
In July this year Mogotlhe allegedly submitted his application for a R1,1-million provincial grant to the Ngakaa Modiri Molema offices of his department.
The North West department of agriculture, conservation and environment had been looking for youth farming projects to sponsor, as provincial agriculture minister Jan Serfontein had committed the department to at least two youth-owned projects in each of its districts.
The department’s budget policy statement for 2008/09 classified the Thathana project as a youth project, despite Mogotlhe being older than the maximum 35 years needed to qualify. His precise age could not be established this week, but his departmental colleagues say he is in his forties.
When this oversight was discovered the project was moved to a more general category. Mogotlhe told an official who confronted him that as a farmer he qualified for the grant.
He said the signatures on the agreement “were effected in two different capacities — as head of department and secondly as a member of Thathana Farms”. “The signature was specifically qualified to indicate this fact,” he said, adding that other family members were not available to sign.
He told the M&G that he started Thathana farms in 2003 as a family business. He said that at this time he was still head of department at the province’s department of safety and liaison.
“The family business was started openly and operated for a number of years,” he said. “I didn’t know that I would be redeployed to a sector in which my family business operates. Even then all care was taken to ensure that government decisions were not unduly influenced or interfered with in favour of the family business.”
He said after acquiring a suitable farm, the business applied to the department for funding. “In this application it was also disclosed that I was a member of Thathana Farms,” he said. The application was then recommended to the district and then head office.
“These recommendations were in line with land redistribution for agricultural development policy,” he said.
Mogotlhe said he sought the approval of Serfontein to avoid a possible conflict of interests. The minister approved the grant.
According to the memorandum of understanding Mogotlhe undertook to become actively involved in the project, “demonstrat[ing] his commitment by providing capital contribution/sweat equity in the cases of economic development projects” and to maintain the infrastructure provided to him by his own department.
He also has to implement correct farming practices and provide his department with quarterly reports. He is not allowed to dispose of his shares in the project without departmental consent.
Officials who discovered Mogotlhe’s grant are distinctly unhappy.
“Ordinarily he’s the one who approves the grants on the recommendation of the adjudication panel and he has approved his own grant personally,” one told the M&G. Another said the deal was well known throughout the department.
The agriculture department has been a nest of corruption and strife. At least six officials have been arrested for corruption in the past two years, while the department is said to have become a battlefield for warring factions of the ANC in North West.
Mogotlhe’s predecessor, Emily Mogajane, was dismissed in 2006 when she tried to address corruption in the department. Last year the services of agriculture provincial minister Elliot Mayisela were terminated when he admitted in court papers that the ANC in North West was split and that this affected the running of his department.