The Scorpions have uncovered a link between senior Sunday Times investigative journalist and aspiring Afro-pop star Leonard (Mzilikazi) wa Afrika and Soraya Beukes, one of the accused in the parliamentary travel scam, the Cape Town magistrate's court has heard.
This included Wa Afrika playing a role in trying to arrange a visit to Mozambique for Beukes by allegedly claiming to a hotel boss, Koenraad Collier, that Beukes - who is pleading poverty in her fraud case - was a potential investor.
The Wa Afrika-Beukes connection was outlined in detail in the Cape Town magistrate's court this week during an application by the state to withdraw Beukes's bail. The court ruled on Friday that her R100 000 bail be cancelled. She will be held in custody until her case is finalised.
One of the key reasons was that the state had argued that Beukes had planned to abscond on the trip to Mozambique.
Beukes and six other travel agency bosses and staff have been charged in connection with defrauding parliament of more than R13-million.
The scam allegedly included MPs using their travel vouchers for unauthorised expenditure, including hiring luxury cars and staying in hotels.
The travel agencies allegedly claimed for this unauthorised travel by creating fake air tickets and other documents and further inflated the amounts claimed.
Wa Afrika, who identifies himself as "the native who caused all the trouble" on his cellphone voicemail, has amassed a number of awards for his courageous style of reporting and led the team of journalists who exposed corruption in the country's arms deal.
This week Wa Afrika's name emerged in court when Scorpions investigator Kobus Roelofse testified that on September 15 Beukes approached the Cape Town magistrate's court for permission to travel to Catembe in Mozambique.
She had told the court she had been approached in her capacity as a tourism and travel expert to conduct a viability and feasibility study for potential investors in the Catembe Gallery Hotel for which she would be paid.
Beukes had argued through her legal team that she had had no income over the past 12 months because her travel agency, Business and Executive Travel, was being liquidated.
Her application to the court for permission go to Mozambique was withdrawn at the last minute and when she asked the Scorpions for permission to go there, they refused.
But a subsequent investigation, highlighted this week in court, revealed an apparent trail of lies and the Wa Afrika link to the saga.
Roelofse handed in an affidavit from Collier who, according to the document, is a former "United Nations diplomat".
Collier claimed that in February he had been approached by Wa Afrika, who wanted to know more about the Catembe district. Wa Afrika had stayed in the hotel, apparently on an assignment for the Sunday Times travel section, but the story was never used.
Wa Afrika liked the hotel so much he wanted to bring his wife with him for a 10-day visit the next time he was in town. Collier said during the course of conversation, Wa Afrika asked whether "we could promote his CD".
On April 6 Wa Afrika faxed a copy of the front cover of the Afro-pop CD, titled "Afrika", to him.
According to Collier, Wa Afrika called him on September 5 and "indicated that he made contact with business people from South Africa and the United Kingdom who were interested in the Catembe Hotel and/or Mozambique".
Collier said Wa Afrika supplied him with the name and contact number of Soraya Beukes. She was, according to Wa Afrika, part of a consortium who were interested in investing in the hotel.
Collier said he then emailed Beukes at the address supplied by Wa Afrika. The reason for the invitation to Beukes was that she was a potential investor.
Collier said there had been no talk about Beukes doing any work for him or "anyone else".
He had emailed the invitation at 7.33am on September 6.
But 22 minutes later, he emailed Wa Afrika to thank him, but also to express concern.
Collier said he had done this after doing an Internet search on Business and Executive Travel and finding a newspaper report linking the company to the parliamentary travel scam.
Less than an hour after he invited Beukes, he cancelled the invitation. He had sent the letter of cancellation to Wa Afrika.
Later in the day Wa Afrika had sent a cellphone text message to reassure him of Beukes's innocence.
Wa Afrika's SMS read: "Konraad (sic), I just want to assure you that I will never let you do business with people who are crooks or involved in a scheme.
"As you are aware, I am an investigative reporter and I would not like to taint my reputation by being involved with people who are not clean.
"The bottom line is, some members of parliament used their travel vouchers meant for economy class air tickets to book hotels and hire cars through some of the travel agencies. The point is, members (sic) parliament broke the laws and not the travel agencies, if somebody comes to your hotel and buy supper, do you ask them where they got their money from. NO. If they had robbed a bank, you did not, you only offered them your services as clients. The MPs told the travel agencies what they want and the agencies rendered the services requested by the MPs, that's the reason only the MPs, and not the travel agencies, are paying back parliament."
Then on September 16, a day after Beukes's application in the Cape Town magistrate's court for permission to travel to Catembe, Collier was alerted to a report in a Cape Town newspaper linking his hotel to the travel scam.
"This upset me," he said.
He then emailed Wa Afrika and Jessica Bezuidenhout, Wa Afrika's colleague at the Sunday Times. His irate comments included: "You send me SMSes and phone calls to assure me there is nothing wrong and that I should trust you. I could smell a rat, but could not imagine that the press or you are that low ... Who are you and your Sunday Times to destroy our good name with your scams, trying to involve others in scams, misusing others."
Sunday Times editor Mondli Makhanya said on Friday the first he had heard of the matter was when Weekend Argus approached him for comment, but he would launch an immediate investigation.