Accusations fly as another friendship goes south
May 1, 2010 10:17 PM | By STEPHAN HOFSTATTER
The "unlikable" Ronald Suresh Roberts is embroiled in another spat - this time over oil deals with a company that belongs to relatives of Deputy Chief Justice Dikgang Moseneke.
TITILLATING PROSPECT: Suresh Roberts Picture: MUNTU VILAKAZI
Roberts was hired to 'do something to earn his keep' after pestering contacts for cash
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A "broke" Roberts had a spectacular falling out with his former benefactor, Judge Moseneke's brother Tiego, over his role as an oil concession wheeler and dealer for a company called the Encha Group.
Encha is a politically connected consortium with various energy, property, mining and telecoms interests.
Roberts told the Sunday Times this week that he had helped "Judge Moseneke's company" broker a potentially lucrative swap of its disputed prospecting rights to oilfields in the Democratic Republic of Congo with "actual, undisputed, oil-producing assets" in his Caribbean homeland, Trinidad and Tobago.
Encha is owned by Tiego Moseneke and cousin Gontse Moseneke. Judge Moseneke controls a family trust that holds an 18% stake in Encha. The judge has previously pointed out that this does not violate judicial ethics or law, adding he played no executive role in Encha, and that the trust's sole beneficiaries were his offspring.
But Roberts claimed the Moseneke family shamelessly exploited political connections to clinch the deal.
"Judge Moseneke's company (specifically through Tiego Moseneke) induced the then minister of minerals and energy, Buyelwa Sonjica, to travel to Trinidad and Tobago to assist the ambitions of Judge Moseneke's company," he told the Sunday Times.
"The minister and Tiego Moseneke duly travelled there in November 2008. However, Encha's inability to deliver undisputed title to their alleged DRC oil rights subsequently derailed the intended negotiation."
The Mosenekes declined to discuss the matter with the Sunday Times other than to concur with a ruling by the Council for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration that branded Roberts a liar.
"Mr Roberts's averments were found to be false and untruthful by the CCMA, and were thus rejected," said Gontse Moseneke. "I trust that you find this in order."
Records of the CCMA hearings into Roberts's claim for an alleged unfair dismissal, offer revealing details of a bitter split between two former friends.
Tiego told the CCMA that he had hired a "broke" Roberts in 2008 because he thought Roberts should "do something to earn his keep" after he kept pestering him for cash.
A year earlier the Cape High Court had ordered him to cough up R1-million in legal fees plus interest when he lost a lawsuit against the Sunday Times for publishing an article entitled "The Unlikeable Mr Roberts".
He claimed he had had to mortgage his home to raise the money.
Roberts was signed up with Encha to secure "certain oil assets" in Trinidad and Tobago. Later he joined an Encha consortium that won a tender from the SA Oil and Gas Alliance to explore setting up a fuel supply hub in the Western Cape. But the records show Roberts was fired for refusing to hand over a research report on the oil and gas project to Encha.
In February the CCMA rejected Roberts's unfair dismissal claim because he had failed to show he'd been an Encha employee rather than an independent contractor.
He had earned a monthly R40000 retainer and an occasional bonus during this time.
The ruling found Roberts "evasive and untruthful". By contrast, Tiego, who'd previously been struck from the roll of attorneys for misappropriating trust fund money, was described as a "a good witness" whose evidence should be accepted over Roberts's.
Asked how he felt about being branded a liar, Roberts said the commissioner's decision was "irrational and reviewable".
He has applied to the Labour Court to have it set aside.
He declined to explain how he could claim to be a full-time employee of Encha when he had worked from his flat with a laptop, and never had UIF or PAYE deducted from his earnings.
"I do not litigate by partisan media," he said. He also denied he is or was broke - "however titillating that prospect".
He disputed a report that he was fighting to keep his possessions from being sold by the sheriff to recover money he still owes the Sunday Times: "The sheriff has not removed, let alone 'started selling', my possessions. That titillating prospect is, as Mark Twain said of his own rumoured death, greatly exaggerated."
hofstatters@sundaytimes.co.za
Times Alive
Comments by Sonny
Why must SA feed the fat?
There are more foreigners in SA than citizens!
The sanctity of the judiciary is at stake here!
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