An investigation spearheaded by the former chief financial officer of Access Facilities and Leisure Management raised suspicions that the company was being used as a front to siphon off money meant for the Bay’s embattled Integrated Public Transport System.
Testifying in the multimillion-rand fraud case linked to the alleged siphoning off of funds given to the municipality by the National Treasury for the IPTS, Mariane van Rooyen said shortly after she started working at Access in February 2012, she became concerned about money received from the metro and paid to a firm for miscellaneous recoveries and other questionable reasons.
“This bothered me. Everything was not in order – everything didn’t seem right,” Van Rooyen told the Port Elizabeth Commercial Crimes Court on Thursday.
She said it was a payment of R2.9m received by Access and then scheduled to be paid into the account of Zeranza 299 CC that had raised her suspicions.
“I received a payment schedule which had a payment of R2.9m for [Zeranza] on it.
“What triggered me was that when I did the bank reconciliation I noticed large amounts [of money] being paid to [Zeranza] two or three weeks prior,” Van Rooyen said.
After realising something was amiss when she could not find relevant paperwork, including a mandate for the money received by Access from the municipality to be transferred to Zeranza, Van Rooyen raised her concerns with then Access CEO Stephan Pretorius.
“[Pretorius] said to me not to worry, that it was an operational matter.”
Not satisfied, Van Rooyen approached Chantal du Pisani, who she considered to be second in command of the Access Port Elizabeth branch because MD Rian Oberholzer was in Ireland at the time.
“[Du Pisani] immediately shared my concerns. We were in agreement something was not right,” Van Rooyen said.
At the time Zeranza, owned by Andrea Wessels, was a tenant at the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium – which Access managed – but according to Van Rooyen there was no signed stadium hire agreement for Zeranza’s occupation of offices.
Van Rooyen said she received a call from Oberholzer the same day she conveyed her concerns to Du Pisani.
“I recall [Oberholzer] not being so friendly. He was upset about the payments – he did not know for how much they were or what for.
“He requested I immediately start gathering information.
“I had to gather records of each payment made to Zeranza as well as reporting invoices from them. He wanted me to make sure each payment was made to the book,” she said.
Van Rooyen’s subsequent investigations and findings were handed in to court in a large lever arch file.
It contained information of invoices made out by Access to the municipality for services rendered by Zeranza.
These included the contested R2.9m transaction and invoices citing miscellaneous recoveries and management services, among others.
Van Rooyen read into the record numerous invoices and e-mails sent between then Access financial manager Chris Swift and the municipality, including an invoice for more than US$500,000 (R7m) for international artists’ fees.
Included in the file were at least two letters signed by Swift in which he detailed that he was instructed to effect payments from Access to other suppliers, including Zeranza.
“As I found information I put it in the file,” Van Rooyen said.
When the offices of Access were raided by the Hawks in September 2016, Van Rooyen handed over the file with all the documents and records she had collected before she left the company in October 2016.
Van Rooyen had earlier testified she was aware of at least two incidences where the municipality had mandated Access to effect payments to creditors who were not loaded on the municipality’s system.
This included a payment to the SA Rugby Union for the city’s hosting of the IRB Sevens rugby in 2011.
Van Rooyen said in that incident there was a specific signed authorised mandate for the transaction to be done.
During her investigations, Van Rooyen was unable to find such documents for Zeranza.
After briefing Oberholzer on his return to SA in late April 2012 about her findings, Pretorius abruptly resigned from his position following a meeting between the two men.
Wessels, Zeranza, Pretorius, former EP Rugby head Cheeky Watson, former metro assistant finance director Nadia Gerwel and former Laphum’ilanga director Mandisa Mkasa face a total of 44 charges, among them fraud and money laundering.
They have all pleaded not guilty.