DA lays charge against Shaik

DA lays charge against Shaik
March 2011
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Convicted fraudster Schabir Shaik. Picture: Felix Dlangamandla/Foto24/Julian Rademeyer.

The DA on Monday laid charges against convicted fraudster Schabir Shaik after reports that he is still listed as a director of a company that was involved in South Africa's arms deal.
Democratic Alliance (DA) federal chairman Wilmot James laid the charges at the Johannesburg Central police station, said DA spokeswoman Kelly Miller.

The charges were laid against Shaik as his alleged directorship after a fraud conviction was in breach of section 218 of the Companies Act.

The DA wanted the matter investigated by the police.

The Sunday Times reported that Shaik was listed as a director of KobiProp, previously a subsidiary of the Nkobi Group, which was fined for corruption during Shaik's fraud and corruption trial, which ended in 2005.

According to the Companies Act someone found guilty of theft, fraud, forgery, uttering a forged document or corruption cannot hold a directorship.

Shaik is the sole “active” director of KobiProp, according to the Companies and Intellectual Property Registration Office (Cipro).

“As far as I am concerned I had signed all the necessary company resignation documents and would have expected that between the company's internal accountants and auditors, this secretarial matter would have been resolved,” Shaik was quoted saying.

Shaik's lawyer Reeves Parsee told the Sunday Times: “He (Shaik) said he had given his accountants instructions to resign himself from KobiProp. He doesn't know why this hasn't been reflected.”

Last year it emerged that former ANC chief whip Tony Yengeni was a director of six companies, despite a corruption conviction. - Sapa

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Hawks 'have arms deal bribe'
2010-09-10 12:00

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NPA not probing arms deal


Johannesburg - The Hawks say they are in possession of a signed agreement in which a German arms dealer agreed to pay a bribe to a group represented by Shamim "Chippy" Shaik, the Sowetan reported on Friday.

Shaik, the brother of convicted fraudster Schabir Shaik, was working for the defence department as chief of acquisitions for the arms deal at the time.

The newspaper said it had a copy of the English translation of an agreement signed by Christopher Hoenings, who was at the time an executive at German warship manufacturer Thyssen.

"The last trip (July 27 to 30 1998) was suggested by C Shaikh (sic), director Defence Secretariat. During one of our meetings he asked once again for explicit confirmation that the verbal agreement made with him for payment to be made in case of success, to him and a group represented by him, in the amount of US$3 million (about R21m)," the agreement reads, according to the translation.

The Sowetan reported an unnamed source as saying on Thursday, that apart from Shaik, another 21 politically-connected South Africans allegedly benefited from the German bribe.



- SAPA

Read more on: arms deal | thyssen | hawks | chippy shaik

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NPA not probing arms deal
2010-05-14 22:08

Related Links
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Attempt 'to hide dodgy deals'

Cape Town - The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) is no longer investigating any cases of arms deal corruption as this was now in the hands of the Hawks, national director Menzi Simelane said on Friday.

"We are no longer responsible for all of that," he said after a briefing to Parliament's watchdog committee on public accounts (Scopa).

Simelane told Scopa this was an accepted outcome of the decision to disband the Directorate of Special Operations or Scorpions, which stripped the NPA of any investigative capacity.

Its successor, the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigations or Hawks, reports to the police instead of the NPA.

Hawks investigating

"All information has been handed to commissioner (Anwa) Dramat," he said, referring to the head of the Hawks.

Hawks spokesperson Musa Zondi said the unit was indeed investigating allegations of arms deal corruption but he was not at liberty to discuss the cases.

The files were handed over to the Hawks at the unit's inception in July 2009, he added.

Simelane said he had "no idea" whether businessman Fana Hlongwane was still in the cross-hairs since he recently instructed the NPA's Asset Forfeiture Unit (AFU) to abandon a court application to freeze assets in Lichtenstein allegedly linked to shady arms deals.

The AFU was responding to requests from European investigators who suspected the money could be traced back to bribery and corruption by British defence company BAE.

Simelane's intervention

The Scorpions believed BAE did not play by the rules when it won a deal to supply Hawk trainer aircraft and Gripen fighter jets to South Africa for $2.1bn, but paid about R1bn in "commissions" to secure the contract.

Simelane's intervention earned him accusations of effectively burying the arms deal probe.

He defended his decision, saying hundreds of pages of reportedly incontrovertible evidence against Hlongwane, a former advisor to late defence minister Joe Modise, turned out to be "not so clear-cut" on closer inspection.

Scopa chairperson Themba Godi said he would call the police to question them about any progress in probing allegations of corruption around the multi-billion rand arms deal inked by the Thabo Mbeki administration.

"When we invited the NPA we wanted to talk to these Scopa resolutions. The SAPS has responsibility for anything that happens further and we would want to know whether, since the transfer took place, there was any progress."


- SAPA

Read more on: military | corruption | hawks | npa | menzi simelane | musa zondi