Telkom bosses ‘summoned’
Nomazizi Mtshotshisa , chairperson, and Papi Molotsane, chief executive, are to appear before commissioner Arnold Subel on 10 July. Subel is conducting an investigation into the affairs of a smart card supplier in liquidation.
Subel summoned them last week as witnesses, along with Mandla Ngcobo, Telkom’s corporate head, and Thapelo Petje, previous head of procurement at Telkom.
They are required to provide documents and answer questions regarding the multi million rand tender that was awarded to Gijima Africa Smart Technologies (GAST) in 2002.
Conduct investigation
Subel, a senior advocate, was appointed in 2002 by the Master of the high court as commissioner to conduct an investigation under sections 417 and 418 of the Companies Act, into the affairs of Applied Card Technologies (ACT), a company in liquidation.
The investigation is being conducted at the request of Dr John Sterenborg, co-owner of ACT.
ACT was one of the three companies approached by Telkom in 2001 to manufacture telephone cards until 2005 for the communications giant.
At the time, Gijima group’s Robert Gumede was the black empowerment partner of ACT and owned 26% of the company’s shares.
The tender was eventually awarded to GAST, one of Gumede’s other companies. ACT was placed under provisional liquidation in November 2001.
Gumede acquired the remainder of the ACT shares in the interim and took control of the company.
Tender "diverted"
During the Subel hearings a suspicion arose that the Telkom tender was "diverted" away from ACT and that the R600m contract should have been awarded to ACT.
To prove this, at Sterenborg’s request Subel ordered Gumede to hand over to the commission certain documents that GAST and Gijima Info Technologies Africa (GITA) possessed.
Gumede refused and approached the Johannesburg High Court. His application was turned down. On September 27 2005 the Supreme Court of Appeal also ruled that Subel had the right to request the documents.
In a directive judgement, all five appeal judges ruled that a commissioner’s right to access to documents is stronger than a company’s right to privacy in such an investigation.
The judges found that there was more than enough reason for Subel to suspect the tender should have gone to ACT.
Testify on tender
Now Subel has also summoned Mtshotshisa, Molotsane, Ngcobo en Petje to testify on the tender being awarded to GAST. They must also hand over to Subel all the documents pertaining to the tender.
Ngcobo was head of Telkom’s legal services when the tender was awarded. He was recently in the news when Sake-Beeld revealed that Telkom’s primary distribution contract was awarded last year to a company whose main shareholder is a business partner of Ngcobo.
Gumede is currently deputy chairperson of the listed technology company GijimaAST. GITA merged with AST in 2005 and Gumede acquired 30% of the company’s shares.
Source: Finance24
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