eBusiness Weekly
Former high-profile Tongaat Hulett executives, who have been criminally charged in an alleged R3.5-billion fraud scam relating to sales of land owned by Tongaat Hulett, may also face charges of racketeering.
On Monday, when they appeared in Durban’s specialised commercial crime court, state advocate Andre Carlitz, placed on record that the state was considering adding racketeering charges to the indictment.
The State, despite saying at the first appearance that the investigation was complete and that it would make the docket available to the defence, on Monday said the forensic investigator’s report, and the process to obtain the racketeering certificate were incomplete.
Once the indictment is finalised, the matter is expected to be transferred to the Durban High Court.
The accused, currently charged with fraud, are former Tongaat CEO Peter Staude, ex-CFO Murray Munro, former managing director of Tongaat Hulett Developments Michael Deighton, ex-Tongaat Hulett Developments planning director Rory Wilkinson and former executives Kamasagrie Singh and Samantha Shukia. Gavin Kruger, former lead partner at Deloitte’s is the seventh accused. He has also been charged with contravening the Auditing Professions Act.
They first appeared before Magistrate Garth Davis in Durban’s Specialised Commercial Crime Court in February this year and were all granted bail of R30 000.
According to the provisional indictment, they acted with common purpose to commit the crimes between 2015 and 2018 related to about 69 property deals.
It is alleged that they overstated the value of the deals in Tongaat’s financial records, and misrepresented that proper accounting procedures had been followed in determining the revenue on the deals. Some were backdated to previous financial records thereby artificially manipulating the financial reporting periods.
The matter has been postponed until 2 June this year.
Apart from the criminal charges, Tongaat has also instituted civil claims of about R450 million against some of the accused, in an attempt to recoup monies lost through the alleged fraud.
