Durban - Controversial Umhlanga businessman and fraud accused, Thoshan Panday, isn’t saying what is on the secret telephone recordings of conversations he had with top politicians and police members.
On Saturday Panday promised to answer “all questions” raised in the matter of “illegal tapping”, in court.
This week the Sunday Tribune was told the bugged calls were “explosive”.
A source said legal intercepts of Panday’s calls connected top ANC figures, businessmen and police officials to big state contracts.
The source said there was a call in which a KZN businessman claimed to have paid a politician millions of rands, and there are others which linked Panday to a prominent Nkandla businessman and ally of President Jacob Zuma.
This week the issue of the bugged calls made headlines ahead of a labour court case involving the former head of Crime Intelligence in KZN, Major General Dina Moodley. On Friday Moodley’s case was adjourned pending judgment. Police brass are attempting to transfer Moodley and he is resisting.
It emerged this week that Moodley had been issued with a new notice of intention to suspend him.
The Daily News broke the story when it reported that the suspension was for playing recordings of intercepted phone calls to Panday at a meeting with the police last September.
On Saturday Panday refused to disclose the substance of the conversations or who they were with.
He said the “illegal bugging” was being dealt with by the “relevant authorities at the highest level”.
Panday claimed illegally procured recordings of his “private conversations” with prominent political and business figures were used to blackmail him.
He alleged that high-ranking police officers, led by Moodley, had tried to coerce him to say provincial police commissioner Mmamonnye Ngobeni was on his payroll in an attempt to get her fired.
The meeting came a week before he was arrested and charged with corruption and defeating the ends of justice, for which he stands accused of supplying R1.3 million in cash with which Colonel Navin Madhoe allegedly attempted to bribe KZN Hawks head Johan Booysen. The bribe is alleged to have been in exchange for information on a Hawks probe into an alleged R60m police accommodation tender scam during the World Cup.
The businessman, through Gold Coast Trading, one of his 30 companies, is alleged to have inflated hotel room prices and sold them to the police for a tidy sum of R60m. The flamboyant Panday is furthermore alleged to have paid for a birthday party for Ngobeni’s husband Lucas. Panday denied allegations that his latest revelation is a ruse to draw attention from his other matters.
Moodley was ousted by then acting national police commissioner Lieutenant General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi, who cited serious misconduct related to top secret information.
If Moodley’s labour court opposition is successful, he will return to the helm of crime intelligence in the province.
The source told the Sunday Tribune the latest bid to have Moodley suspended was a political move to keep him from his post.
Sunday Tribune