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Thoshan Panday and Navin Madhoe at the Durban Magistrates Court. (Photo: Twitter / @MervynNaidoo)
A slew of arrests in KwaZulu-Natal on Friday related to investigations dating back to 2009 are sure to restore some confidence in the country’s severely bruised justice system, but until convictions are secured, the National Prosecutor’s Office and police may expect the public to continue exasperated discontent with the looting of public funds.
The highest-profile fraud and corruption case unfolding at KZN may be the R430 million Durban solid waste tender scandal involving former eThekwini Mayor Zandile Gumede, but the largest, and possibly more complex investigation, known in monetary terms that the Hawks are dealing with. with implies in the current count the R700 million in an alleged bid fraud within the metro’s water and sanitation department.
No arrests have yet been made in this investigation, which focuses on a three-phase contract dating back to 2008, the third phase ended in 2019, for the construction of sanitation facilities in the city’s informal settlements and transit camps.
As is the unsophisticated pattern of scammers, contractors were overpaid and services were either not or poorly performed. City officials, however, received great talent from their carefully selected providers, while the poorest residents of eThekwini were left without ablutions or poor-quality ablutions that had to be shared by up to 70 households, and in many cases had no plumbing or running water.
The Hawks carried out a second series of raids on property and offices in September in this case, collecting documents and electronic devices, which have been sent for analysis. Once the case is ready, it will be sent to the NPA for a decision on prosecution and arrests.
But it was the new arrest on Friday of Umhlanga businessman Thoshan Panday, who counts Jacob Zuma’s cousin Deebo Mzobe among his business partners, that drew the attention of the media and the country.
Panday appeared in Durban Magistrates Court along with Colonel Navin Madhoe on allegations of fraud and corruption related to police accommodation and supplies for officials working at the 2010 Soccer World Cup.
Also mentioned in the 130-page indictment are former Captain Aswin Narainpershad and former KZN police commissioner Mmamonnye Ngobeni.
All the accused have indicated that they will plead not guilty to the charges.
Narainpershad and Ngobeni are expected to surrender to the police today, Monday, October 4, after the NPA issued a statement on Friday saying that Ngobeni was considered to be “at large,” a claim she strongly denied when speaking with Maverick Journal.
Although the 60 million rand fraud allegedly committed by Panday and his co-defendant 10 years ago is a small change compared to today’s professional looting standards, the case has well-known ties to allegedly dishonest policemen and at best cases deeply inefficient, at worst deeply corrupt. and Moipone Noko, a former KZN prosecution chief with political affiliation, who has yet to get his due.
Former KZN Hawks director Johan Booysen broke down the allegations in his book, Blood on their hands. The case, as it stood at the time, significantly altered Booysen’s career path, as it did with other SAPS members, who were wrongly accused of being part of a “death squad” to further stifle investigations. about Panday, rogue cops and possible links. in the political food chain.
Panday, Madhoe and Narainpershad are charged with 230 counts of fraud that allegedly took place between 2008 and 2010. Madhoe is accused of attempting to bribe Booysen, with money allegedly provided by Panday, to alter the evidence and thwart the investigation that Booysen had initiated. the case.
Ngobeni is accused of trying to stop the investigation. She is also accused of taking a bribe from Panday at the time in the form of an expensive birthday party at a local Umhlanga for her police husband.
She told reporters years ago that one of Panday’s companies had been hired to handle the event, and that subordinates in her office had drawn up a list of potential service providers, from which Panday was chosen. Ngobeni claims that she paid Panday out of her personal funds.
Madhoe and Narainpershad were working in SAPS provincial supply chain management at the time of the alleged crimes and, according to the indictment, worked to keep quotes below R200,000 to circumnavigate the need for greater scrutiny of the offerings. .
Another tactic used was to sit on procurement needs so that they could later be approved as emergencies, again circumventing regulations. Procurement for emergency needs would then be funneled to companies owned or controlled by Panday, and prices would be hugely inflated, with profits reaching more than 300% in some cases.
The case is being handled by the NPA’s Directorate of Investigations (ID), established by President Cyril Ramaphosa in April 2019 to deal with carefully selected high-profile serious corruption cases that have been identified through, among other routes, commissions and investigations.
Booysen said Daily maverick which welcomed the “positive progress in eradicating corruption,” but added that Noko and the NPA’s deputy director, Seal Maema, who allegedly “protected” the accused when they were first arrested, “should be held accountable. ”. He said his continued presence at the NPA “would undermine these efforts to bring corrupt officials to the book.”
Noko was transferred to lead the prosecutions in the North West province in 2019, but was also interviewed for the country’s top prosecutor position, now the domain of Shamila Batohi. During his testimony at the Zondo commission, Booysen accused Noko of being a liar for denying that he had anything to do with the decision to prosecute the bogus case against him.
Ngobeni was based in the “backwater” of Ulundi before being appointed chief of police in KZN.
She said Daily maverick It was “silly” that she was “on the run” and that an investigator had contacted her only on Friday night and that she would report to the police on Monday. The ID had claimed he couldn’t locate her because her phone was off.
KwaZulu-Natal government spokesman Lennox Mabaso said Daily maverick that “all” the officials detained in the case had been suspended before being detained and were undergoing disciplinary proceedings.
Regarding the merits of the case, Ngobeni said Daily Maverick: “They can tell all the rubbish and nonsense like they normally do, and lie to the public and hide the real truth, why are they hiding the real truth?
“They shouldn’t just look at one side of the coin and hide the other side of the coin. Who were the people on the nomination committee who authorized this and where was I when all this nonsense happened?
“ME [took up my post as commissioner] end of November 2009, and the processes and everything was already underway. People shouldn’t take me for a scapegoat. People need to clarify and say what their role was, but we will meet in court, see how it goes there. “
Panday’s brother Visham, constantly criticizing his brother’s innocence during the long saga, said Daily maverick that Thoshan “would never have a fair trial.”
“Batohi is in the line of fire, so he wants to get up from his comfortable chair and bring this up after nine years. It will not work. It does not work like that.
“It’s about political scores with my brother. We have three presidents in the country: Ramaphosa, Batohi and Booysen ”.
the Sunday grandstand Thoshan Panday reported saying over the weekend: “What about Minister Bheki Cele? Why has he not been charged? It is alleged that Panday further claimed that it was the Minister of Police, in his then capacity as Police Commissioner, who signed the agreement for one of Panday’s companies to provide meals and accommodation for the Soccer World Cup officials.
The allegations will surely be addressed if the matter goes to trial, but in his book, Booysen said it was Cele who encouraged him to continue the investigations into Panday:
“Bheki Cele instructed me to take over the investigation and not allow interference. He knew that he and General Ngobeni had once been very close; He wasn’t sure what had caused this. There must have been other dynamics at play. “
Interestingly, although Visham Panday has been quoted in the media as the brother and spokesman for Thoshan’s family, Thoshan has denied the relationship. When contacted by Daily maverick, Thoshan said:
“First of all, he is not my brother. He is a distant relative. And good luck and goodbye. Please refrain from any contact with me. I don’t want to get involved with any journalist ”.
Daily maverick sought independent verification from people close to the Pandays, who confirmed Visham and Thoshan were “close” as brothers, but downplayed their personal relationship in public.
The second batch of upper-middle-profile arrests on Friday mainly related to cover quotes in catering tenders in the Prime Minister’s Office (OTP) dating back to 2013 and running through 2016. There are 16 defendants in this case , five of them civil servants and the rest companies and service providers, some linked to civil servants.
The first batch of arrests in the R24 million fraud case took place in July. The prosecution officials arrested so far are the supply chain manager (who appeared on Friday), the chief financial officer, a personal assistant to one of the managers, an administrative clerk and a senior administrative assistant. All the officials have been released on bail, as have the service providers.
All the defendants face charges of fraud and contravention of Section 21 of the Law on Prevention and Combat of Corrupt Activities, read with the Law of Revolutionary Assemblies for, among other things, “conspiring with officials to control the results of the process of tender in the prime minister’s office ”.
Service providers and officials allegedly conspired, and officials received bribes.
KwaZulu-Natal government spokesman Lennox Mabaso said Daily maverick that “all” the officials detained in the case had been suspended before being detained and were undergoing disciplinary proceedings.
“They probably have a five or six month suspension now,” Mabaso said. He had previously said in the arrests that “some” of the officials were on preventive suspension.
The suspensions were the result of an internal forensic report, he said. Daily maverick, which could not be officially made public as it would jeopardize the case.
When asked how many other officials in the prime minister’s office were linked to the scam or other allegations of fraud that were being investigated internally, Mabaso replied:
“At some point, the prime minister will address issues of ethics and good and fair governance, and then he will release how many officials are being disciplined and suspended in various provincial departments.”
This would take place “in the next few weeks,” he said. DM
