Former South African Clothing and Textile Workers’ Union (Sactwu) consultant, Richard Kawie, is alleged in court papers to have been paid R8-million for his work as a consultant who played a leading role in investing workers money in the Canyon Springs Investments 12 portfolio.
The claim is made in papers submitted this week in the Western Cape High Court by the Trilinear Empowerment Trust, a party to the application for the liquidation of Canyon Springs. Kawie could not be reached for comment.
Kawie resigned from Sactwu, the Mail & Guardian has learnt, but later turned up again to work at the unions headquarters in Cape Town. One of the managers said Kawie was “helping Sactwu with provident funds” but that he had been asked to leave the union.
A Trilinear Capital report on what needed to be done about the Canyon Springs investments alleges that Kawie was paid fees for investments in the company and received a director’s salary from it.
Trilinear Capital said in court papers that Canyon Springs director Mohan Patel told it that Kawie had earned a total of R8-million in this way. The Trilinear report also referred to unspecified “loans” Kawie received from Canyon Springs.
A draft report on Canyon Springs’s annual financial statements for the year ended February 28 2011, also submitted in court, discloses that he received a loan of more than R330Â 000, which was “unsecured, bears interest at prime, currently 10.5%, and is repayable by way of mutual agreement”.
Until recently Kawie was a tenant in the same building as Canyon Springs in Athlone. When the M&G went to photograph the building there appeared to be little activity there. A receptionist in the office, asked whether the company had shut its doors, refused to comment.
Meanwhile, at Sactwu’s headquarters in Salt River, one of the unions contracted consultants, Monroe Mkalipi, must be feeling the heat.
Mkalipi is one of the trustees of the Trilinear Empowerment Trust, which agreed to lend the pension fund money that landed up in the accounts of Canyon Springs and Pinnacle Point. Mkalipi must be aware that tension is rising among clothing factory workers, many of whom are visiting the Sactwu offices to find out what has happened to the provident fund money.
Mkalipi, formerly a clothing factory shop steward and regional chair for Sactwu and Cosatu, did not respond to calls to his cellphone.