The Department of Public Works and its former acting director-general, Sam Vukela, were embroiled in a legal battle on Monday over an application to set aside a police lease agreement with property mogul Roux Shabangu.
Vukela claimed he was forced to omit certain facts when he made an affidavit to court over the controversial police headquarters lease deal regarding a building in Pretoria’s CBD.
The Pretoria High Court is due to soon (no date given yet) hear an application by the department regarding the Roux Shabangu lease debacle. In this (main) application the department will ask the court to declare the R500 million lease deal concluded between it and Shabangu, null and void.
This was after Public Protector Thuli Madonsela, had concluded that there were irregularities regarding the lease agreement.
She also implicated Vukela in these “irregularities”.
Vukela complained bitterly about this finding implicating him and vowed to institute review proceedings in this regard.
Vukela, who was the acting director-general during the time the lease deal was concluded, deposed of the founding affidavit on behalf of and in support of the department’s application. This affidavit, which is to form the basis of the application, was made by him in September last year.
Vukela, who was shortly afterwards placed on “special leave” following claims of maladministration and mismanagement against him, subsequent to his affidavit, now filed a supplementary affidavit in the main application.
He said while he told the truth in his first affidavit, he did not “tell it all”.
“The founding affidavit as deposed by me does not contain false or misleading allegations. What is, however, important, is what is not contained in the affidavit,” he said.
Vukela claimed he was now made the “scapegoat” in the building squabble and that the proverbial “gun was put to his head” by former public works minister Gwen Mahlangu-Nkabinde, who “made” him sign the affidavit, although all the facts had not been divulged.
“I signed the affidavit as I was directed by the then minister of public works to do so. In such circumstances, to be brave and refuse to sign, would have been regarded as disloyal, insubordinate and would have prejudiced my employment.
“However, what I did not know at the time was that I was ‘directed’ to sign the affidavit in order for me to be made an ‘escape goat’ and to be insinuated as a ‘corrupt’ person.”
Vukela said he had no choice but to make the supplementary affidavit, because it was important for the court to have the full picture when deciding if the deal was unlawful or not.
But Mahlangu-Nkabinde said he made the affidavit freely and she confirmed the facts afterwards, as related to her by him. “He never complained he had to make it ‘at gunpoint’ or expressed his unwillingness to depose of the affidavit.”
According to her he was never told to omit certain pertinent facts.
In his latest affidavit, Vukela made damning statements against his department which could be of grave consequences in the department’s main application. These include that he claimed it was common practice for the department to often negotiate leases with building owners, rather to go the tender route.
Jeremy Gauntlett, SC, on behalf of the department, launched an interlocutory application on Monday in which he asked Judge Eberhard Bertelsmann not to allow the supplementary affidavit to form part of the proceedings.
“The contents of the ‘supplementary affidavit’ are irrelevant, vexatious and scandalous, and its filing constitutes an irregular step,” said Gauntlett.
He added Vukela wasn’t a party to the proceedings and he was at best a witness. He told the court that the way in which this affidavit was disposed off, in any event contravened the rules of court, as he did not first ask for permission to file it. “The vexatious and scandalous nature of this affidavit is perpetuated by the gratuitous references to having been forced ‘at gunpoint’ to depose to the founding affidavit and having been made the ‘escape goat’. It is not only factually unfounded, but also legally misconceived,” Gauntlett argued.
Pretoria News