Fat Cats
2010-05-02 13:00
ANC Youth League (ANCYL) leaders are using their political
connections with senior government officials and the heads of state-owned
enterprises to enrich themselves through the league’s growing business
empire.
City Press has uncovered a scheme – hatched last year – that places
new directors of the league’s controversial company, Lembede Investment
Holdings, in line for a 30% share of all deals signed during their term of
office.
Documents and sources reveal that the scheme revolves around
creating several companies to front for the league – and making a few
individuals rich.
The companies, in which Lembede holds shares through trusts, are
getting tenders from government departments, a municipality and state-owned
companies sympathetic to the youth league.
The league also resolved that there was a need for political
intervention to open the market for itself in “hostile environments.”
The minutes of a February 2009 Lembede board meeting, where the
scheme was hatched, reveal that the company’s chairperson and ANCYL
treasurer-general, Pule Mabe, led the campaign for self-enrichment of
individuals on the league’s ticket.
On Friday Mabe denied this and said there was an “overwhelming view
by the board that they should be rewarded”.
“This board resolution was not even looked at by the shareholder
because the league wanted the board to focus its attention on closing down
Lembede.”
But two ANC members familiar with the board resolution said the
resolution was never rescinded and was still in place.
According to the minutes of the February 2009 board meeting,
Lembede’s then chief
executive Lonwabo Sambudla was to be paid “10% of the
value of transactions” signed by the company and its subsidiaries during his
term.
Sambudla’s share was to be “accommodated in the mooted 30%”, the
board resolved. This left 20% to be shared among the rest of the board
members.
Sambudla failed to respond to written questions sent to him on
Thursday.
Because Lembede had attracted negative publicity for its dodgy
transactions with slain mining magnate Brett Kebble, new trusts were formed to
front for the league and hold shares in 18 companies.
City Press has established that one of these companies, Review
Printers, last month received a one-year contract for the “printing and
supplying of general full-colour work in the Limpopo province”.
A status report
of Lembede finances shows that the league holds a 30% stake in Review Printers
through the South African Youth Development Trust – whose beneficiaries are
registered members of the league.
Other Lembede companies in business with state-owned entities
include:
» Kopano Travel, which managed the yearly choral music event for
the South African Rail Commuter Corporation and the City of Johannesburg;
and
» Motona Financial Services was to sign a contract with Eskom
Pension Fund for financial brokerage. Motona was also awarded a contract for
financial brokerage by state oil company PetroSA. The February 2009 minutes
state that the contract was to be signed within two weeks and would raise a
minimum income of R500?000 a year.
However, PetroSA spokesperson Thabo Mabaso said yesterday that the
company did not have a contract with Motona.
The board further resolved that a committee including director
Tumisang Kgaboesele and the league’s national executive committee member,
Mduduzi Manana, should seek business opportunities from municipalities where
Manana comes from.
Manana is an MP and hails from Ermelo in Mpumalanga.
A league member who knows of Lembede’s dealings said it “was
disingenuous of them (new ANCYL leadership) to claim clean governance but go
behind closed doors to try to enrich themselves”.
The board’s scheme also contradicts pronouncements made by the
league and its president, Julius Malema, that they would close down
Lembede.
Malema labelled Lembede’s former chief executive, Songezo
Mjongile, and former league member Andile Nkuhlu as “thugs”, and threats were
made to have them charged for enriching themselves in the name of the
ANCYL.
At the time, Malema said: “We can’t carry the same baggage with us.
We can’t carry this problem. We are closing it down and then we are
concentrating on other things.”
dumisane.lubisi@citypress.co.za
- City Press