JOHANNESBURG – Tubby Reddy’s failure to disclose to the Sports Minister that he altered the Griffin Report was “tantamount to fraud” the disgraced former Sascoc chief executive heard yesterday.
This followed an exchange between Reddy and labour law expert Shamima Gaibie during the ministerial committee on the affairs of the SA Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (Sascoc) in Johannesburg.
Reddy, chief financial officer Vinesh Maharaj and senior manager Jean Kelly were fired after he was found guilty of various misconduct and maladministration charges during a disciplinary hearing conducted by law firm Norton Rose Fulbright in December 2017.
“I have looked at the Griffin Report and what I find is that from pages 12 to 24 that’s the technical report as to what bugs if any were found at the Sascoc premises and at your home,” Gaibie said.
“The rest of it was added by you and Kelly. Then passed off as a report from SS Griffin.”
Gaibie found Reddy and Kelly added to the report which ran to more than 200 pages which the former CEO had sent to former Sports Minister Thulas Nxesi to demonstrate what was going on at Sascoc.
“The rest of it is much of the information you provided to us in the two files but if you look on this at the face of it you passed it off as the Griffin report,” Gaibie said.
“What I didn’t understand is what does all of these issues, there is no logical flow from the issues raised by you in these submissions and the technical report from Griffin.”
Reddy said they did not alter any of the information that was contained in the technical part of the report and conceded it was a mistake to pass it off as his own.
“The other information is what was transpiring at Sascoc and I put that together so that I can bring it to the attention of the minister and out of that we’ve laid a charge with the police in relation to the bugging,” Reddy said.
Gaibie asked Reddy whether he had disclosed to the minister that he had altered the report and was not wholly compiled by an independent consultants.
“Did you tell him that you incorporated the majority of the information in this report?” Gaibie asked.
“I just gave him the report,” Reddy responded.
“Well Mr Reddy, that is tantamount to fraud. You are saying to the minister here is the Griffin report,” Gaibie said.
“I hear you; that was not the intention. There was no fraud,” Reddy said.
Reddy dedicated much of his submission attacking Sascoc president Gideon Sam, accusing him of plotting their downfall, corruption and double dipping. He said it had emerged that Sam claimed expenses both as Sascoc president and as Commonwealth Games Federations vice-president.
“Norton Rose Fulbright’s initial bill up to and including the end of September 2017 cost Sascoc a whopping R2.9-million. By the year-end, the figure paid out in total was R6.2-million,” Reddy said.
“It will be even more if the Sascoc case against us unfolds in the CCMA and possibly in the labour court. Kobus Marais and his merry men and women hand-picked by Gideon Sam saw it fit to fabricate charges against the CFO and unjustifiably so,” Reddy said.