DIANNE HAWKER and GCINA NTSALUBA
F ormer Public Works minister Geoff Doidge has denied offering a R50 million settlement to property mogul Roux Shabangu to “walk away” from the controversial R500m Pretoria lease deal.
Shabangu made the allegation in an affidavit submitted to the Pretoria High Court in the case brought by Public Works to have the lease declared invalid.
In the affidavit, Shabangu said he refused Doidge’s offer of R50m, which was allegedly made at a Durban meeting.
However Doidge says in an affidavit he “never convened” a meeting with Shabangu, and says Shabangu was the one who raised the lease issue.
“I, like him, was a guest at a dinner at Sibaya, outside Durban… There he raised the matter of the Middestad lease with me…” Doidge said. “He complained about the non-implementation of the lease.”
Doidge said Shabangu had “previously sought to telephone me personally on a number of occasions in this regard”.
“It is absurd to suggest that, with my knowledge of reported irregularities relating to the lease and with the investigation under way, I would make an offer of the wholly arbitrary sum of R50m or any other to Mr Shabangu. I deny this emphatically.”
Doidge said Shabangu had not disclosed the full facts of certain events in his affidavit.
Regarding a meeting he had requested with the CEO of Nedbank, Mike Brown, Doidge sought to clarify why he would not meet any other Nedbank representatives.
“When the lease was being prepared, the draft had been removed from the premises of DPW (Department of Public Works) by Nedbank officials in conjunction with officials of the DPW. It was apparent to me that there was a disturbing closeness between these officials and Mr Shabangu,” he said.
Doidge said he “considered this a serious matter” which he wanted to raise directly with Brown.
Meanwhile, the department, through current acting Director General (DG) Mandisa Fatyela-Lindie, has rubbished much of Shabangu’s submission, saying it is “laden with hearsay” purporting to “cast aspersions interchangeably with the department and the police, seeking to play them off against one another, and even endless attacks on the Public Protector”.
In the Public Works response, suspended DG Siviwe Dongwana has sought to distance himself from a letter which seemed to assure Nedbank that the deal would go ahead.
Dongwana said the letter, which he signed, was brought to him by Sam Vukela, who acted as DG after Dongwana was suspended.
Fatyela-Lindie said Dongwana had “no involvement whatever with the lease” and only signed the letter “in good faith… relying on what Mr Vukela had indicated was the letter’s purpose”.
“Had he known the truth (that) there had not been due compliance with various requirements as asserted in the letter, he would not have signed it,” she said.
Fatyela-Lindie said Shabangu’s request for Nedbank to be joined in the case was without merit, although the bank had also filed an application asking to be allowed to join the case.