Disgraced Gqeberha businesswoman Andrea Wessels and her now-defunct events company took centre stage on Thursday during the protracted fraud and money laundering trial relating to the city’s Integrated Public Transport System (IPTS).
And while Wessels has not been attending court proceedings this week due to ill health, details of how she benefited to the tune of almost R1m through alleged underhanded dealings emerged in the commercial crimes court.
Former police officer and now forensic auditor Bert Botha, who assisted with the auditing of financial records related to the millions of rand which went missing from the city’s coffers, said that during the investigations it was found that Wessels had benefited from at least R758,000 of payments received from Access Facilities and Leisure Management.
The payments were for alleged services she had rendered in relation to a music festival which never happened.
She was paid a further R198,000 directly from the municipality for “consulting and marketing services” at the behest of her co-accused, former Laphumilanga director Mandisa Mkasa, for work she allegedly did for the transportation services company.
Botha told the court that supporting documents which were uncovered showed that Mkasa had motivated for Wessels to be paid at least five times between March and June 2011 while Laphumilanga waited for start-up funds from the municipality to be made available.
“Part of the investigation was to establish who the role players were and their part in arranging the music festival and to determine where the funds were paid to,” Botha said.
During his investigation, Botha discovered that the budget for the 2012 music festival punted to be hosted at the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium and which never happened totalled more than R16m.
“The common purpose was to utilise IPTS funds for payments to Wessels and later to [her company] Zeranza,” he said.
References on the invoices appeared to be for genuine IPTS and municipal-related matters but further investigation revealed that it was not the case, Botha said.
According to him, after an interview with Gerwel she indicated that the R12m paid by the municipality to Access was in relation to stormwater damage caused at the stadium.
“It then became evident that the payments had nothing to do or very little to do with fixing the stormwater damage.
“Supporting documents showed that the remainder of the R12m went to Zeranza.”
It later emerged that Access had requested the payments to pay Zeranza because the company was not registered on the municipal database, he said.
“Funds were never used for the purpose of the music festival,” Botha said.
“The payments went directly to [Wessels] or were used in the acquisition of [assets].”
Botha’s evidence was led after a trial-within-a-trial to determine the admissibility of a statement given by ex-EP Rugby Union head Cheeky Watson was put on hold.
According to Watson's attorney Danie Gouws, the statement was never meant to be used in the case against Watson.
The statement is believed to show how R2.9m was paid into the EPRU bank account by Access and then paid to Zeranza within a few days in February 2013.
Watson is accused of money laundering for his alleged part in willingly and unlawfully allowing the transaction.
He, along with Wessels, her company, Zeranza, Mkasa, Gerwel and former Access chief executive Stefan Pretorius face a total of 44 charges among them, including fraud and money laundering totalling more than R12m.
Pretorius has since died.
They have all pleaded not guilty to the charges.
HeraldLIVE
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