The body of tycoon Sandi Majali has been found in the Quatermain Hotel in Sandton, Johannesburg, on Sunday, Moneyweb reported.
The cause of death was unknown on Sunday evening. Moneyweb quoted Majali’s lawyer John Ncebetsha as saying the family were preparing a statement.
The hotel’s general manager Rosie Chilewitz said she could confirm that Majali had stayed at the hotel on Saturday night, and that his body had been found on Sunday morning.
Chilewitz however could not say when Majali had checked into the hotel.
“I can’t give you any more details on that, all I can say is that he was with us last night. Police are dealing with the rest,” she told the South African Press Association.
Lieutenant Colonel Lungelo Dlamini, Gauteng police spokesperson, said he could not confirm that the man found dead was Majali, and that the family needed to identify the body.
Dlamini also could not say whether the man had any injuries to his body.
“An inquest into this has been opened,” he added.
The Mail & Guardian broke the story of how Majali and his company Imvume Management diverted millions of rands of public money to the African National Congress before the 2004 elections.
PetroSA paid R15-million to Imvume in December 2003 as an “advance” on a shipment of oil condensate for which payment was not yet due and without checking whether Imvume had the ability to repay. Within days Imvume transferred R11-million to the ANC and smaller amounts to, among others, a brother of then-minerals and energy minister Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka and a builder renovating the private home of then-social development minister Zola Skweyiya.
When Imvume failed to pay its foreign supplier in turn PetroSA obliged by paying the same amount again. PetroSA’s efforts to reclaim the money — using a lawyer who happened to be Majali’s business partner — were ineffectual.
Imvume had won large oil allocations from Saddam Hussein’s Iraq after travelling to Baghdad with then-top Luthuli House officials Smuts Ngonyama, Mendi Msimang and Kgalema Motlanthe.
‘Hijacking’
Majali also appeared in court this year, for “hijacking” a company, Kalahari Resources.
Majali along with three other men were expected to go on trial in the Johannesburg Commercial Crimes Court to face charges of fraud.
They allegedly removed Kalahari Resources’ two directors, Brian Amos Mashile and his sister Daphne Mashile-Nkosi, from the Companies and Intellectual Property Registration Office (Cipro) database.
The two siblings had to bring an urgent interdict before the High Court in Johannesburg to get themselves reinstated as directors of the company.
Kalahari Resources owns a 40% stake in Kalagadi Manganese, the mining company developing an R11-billion Northern Cape manganese mine and sinter. – Mail & Guardian reporter and Sapa