Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe’s name has been dragged into a bitter legal battle involving the leaders of the ANC’s Umkhonto weSizwe Military Veterans’ Association (MKMVA) and the owners of a mining company in Limpopo.
At the centre of the legal dispute is a 40% stake in the company valued at millions of rands, which the association claims belongs to it. The veterans have hauled Matuba Holdings and its related companies to court to force it to transfer the relevant share certificate to the newly registered MKMVA Trust.
In 2004 Matuba Holdings gave the shares to an earlier association trust, with previous leaders registered as the trustees. The current association’s leadership has since established and registered a new trust after being elected in 2007. They want Matuba Holdings to transfer the shares to the new trust, which lists both current and former leaders as trustees.
Association president Kebby Maphatsoe is a trustee, with the treasurer, Johannes Motseki, former treasurer Dumisani Khoza and former chairperson Deacon Mathe.
However, Matuba Holdings is objecting to the new arrangement, saying it is intended to benefit a few individual association leaders at the expense of ordinary members. The company claims in court papers that it gave the share certificate to Motlanthe when he was the ANC’s secretary general, in his capacity as chairperson of the MKMVA Trust.
The association has held shares in numerous companies for years, but there is little evidence that the proceeds have benefited ex-combatants and their dependants.
This week Motlanthe denied receiving the association’s certificate. Although Motlanthe’s name features prominently in court papers, his spokesperson, Thabo Masebe, said the deputy president was “not aware” of the court case or that he had been mentioned in court papers.
“He has not received any share certificate from anyone. He has never been involved in anything related to MKMVA investments,” said Masebe. However, Vincent Phaahla, the executive chairperson of Matuba Holdings, a shareholder in Tjate Platinum Corporation, insists in court papers that the company gave the certificate to Motlanthe and the ANC.
Custodian for the MK veterans
“The share certificate is in the possession of the ANC and held by it as the custodian for the MK veterans and the real MK Veterans’ Trust SA,” said Phaahla in the documents. He argued that the association should fight to regain the certificate from the ANC and Motlanthe, who represented the MK veterans in the process.
The association has been embroiled in controversy about the returns from its investments and how some of its executive members have benefited from business deals, while ordinary members continue to live in poverty. Former and current members are accused of making financial gains using the association’s name.
Maphatsoe said this week that the association’s lawyers were talking to ANC treasurer general Mathews Phosa to facilitate a process to get Motlanthe to file an affidavit.
“We don’t want to drag the name of the deputy president into this because tomorrow it will appear that the association is fighting him.” Phosa was not available for comment.
Phaahla claimed that he objected to the association’s application for the shares to be transferred to the new trust in the interests of the organisation’s destitute members.
“I have in the past defended in the high court these shares against the leaders who wanted to expropriate them from the constituency that rightfully owns them for their personal benefit,” he said in court papers.
“I am doing what I have previously done and I will continue this struggle against those who want to unduly personally benefit at the expense of our former freedom fighters of Umkhonto weSizwe.”
He also claimed to be aware that certain association leaders are planning to sell the shares at a reduced value to British-based mining company, Jubilee Platinum. Phaahla argued in court papers that allowing the transaction to go ahead would violate the conditions of the mining licence.
The Mail & Guardian has seen a letter from the former department of minerals and energy’s Limpopo region, written in 2007, that stipulates that the Tjate Platinum Corporation should always be majority-owned by historically disadvantaged South Africans.
Maphatsoe confirmed the organisation was planning to sell some of the shares in Matuba Holdings to Jubilee, but denied the move was intended to benefit a few leaders. “In the NEC we said we’ll sell a certain portion of that 40%, maybe 2%, to Jubilee Platinum, because we don’t get any money from the ANC,” he said in a meeting with the M&G also attended by general secretary Ayanda Dlodlo.
The association’s Limpopo chairperson, Ray Maake, who also sits on its NEC, denied that the NEC had made such a decision. “We’re not aware of such a decision and if it was taken, we must be consulted — particularly us in Limpopo — because if you sell anything here the province must get a share,” said Maake.
Phaahla is insisting that to avoid possible duplication if the association demands the re-issuing of the certificate, it should get Motlanthe, as its original recipient, to write a letter of indemnity clearly stating that the original certificate is null and void.