Plans afoot to charge Ace Magashule’s lawyer

Johannesburg - Plans are afoot to charge Victor Nkhwashu, the lawyer for ANC secretary-general Ace Magashule, after his law firm was allegedly paid double the R60 000 retainer agreed upon by the Government Employees Pension Scheme in 2016.

Nkhwashu’s law firm is also accused of invoicing the scheme another R292 078.40 “without any specified hours worked and hourly rate” the report has said.

The Sunday Independent has it on good authority that the scheme submitted a report as evidence against Nkhwashu, to the commercial crime unit a few weeks ago.

The report comes from an investigation by Ligwa Advisory Service which was contracted by the scheme in May 2017 and was submitted to it in January 2018.

Director Jabu Mahlangu on Saturday confirmed that Ligwa was commissioned to do the investigation but refused to answer specific questions.

“I can confirm that we did such an investigation for the scheme but they are the right people to talk about it,” he said.

The scheme’s chief marketing officer Dr Phumelela Dhlomo on Saturday lambasted this newspaper for trying “to resuscitate an old story making use of leaked and unverified documents.”

“One wonders why this matter was brought to your newspaper as it is currently being handled by the law enforcement agencies, hence we are puzzled as to what are the intentions of your source.

“We can confirm that on the basis of the investigation outcomes, a case was opened at the Brooklyn Police Station, with case number CAS 244/04/2018.

“Once again, this is a sensitive legal matter as it is currently being handled by the law enforcement agencies and we don’t want to jeopardise the investigations.”

Dhlomo said the scheme has been transparent in this matter.

“All possible means are being explored to bring the perpetrators to book and recover monies which belong to members.”

The Ligwa report, seen by the Sunday Independent, shows that Victor Nkhwashu Attorneys were part of 23 law firms that responded to an open bid by the scheme which stated that it wishes to “contract with a number of law firms to comprise its legal panel, responsible for ensuring that the scheme has immediate access to range of specified specialist legal services.

“When contracting with the aforesaid law firms, the scheme intends to contract with at least one small and one medium size law firm in addition to any large law firms that may be contracted with.”

A three-member panel of the scheme’s bid evaluation committee recommended Victor Nkhwashu Attorneys, which scored the second highest points, after the law firm that scored higher was deemed not suitable to deal with the scheme’s best interest.

The report also revealed that the scheme’s Board of Trustees, in a meeting on 25 February 2016, recommended that “contract negotiations be entered into with Victor Nkhwashu Attorneys” and another law firm.

The agreement was signed with Victor Nkhwashu Attorneys’ representatives on March 8, 2016 and on March 10, 2016, in terms of the agreement, Nkhwashu’s law firm was put on a R60 000 monthly retainer excluding VAT.

The report raised some red flags when it was established that Nkhwashu was a business associate in a separate entity owned by a partner to one of the scheme’s bid evaluation committee members.

The report states that Victor Nkhwashu Attorneys was paid a total of R1.7 million for all work done between April 2016 to May 2017.

The report indicates that a “significant portion of the payments to Victor Nkhwashu Attorneys was approved” by the bid evaluation committee member in question and her other colleague “for services rendered and payment respectively.”

The report, however, adds that the investigators picked up two invoices which they consider payments “to be a duplication and thus irregular.”

“We consider it irregular to approve the above invoice without any evidence of the hours spent and the hourly rates on which it was based,” the report states.

The report concluded that the scheme should institute action to recover the R60 000 double payment from Victor Nkhwashu Attorneys and report the matter to law enforcement agencies since the bid evaluation member didn’t declare her conflict of interest.

Sunday Independent

Mon, 30 Nov 2020 07:29:39 GMTMzilikazi Wa Afrika

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