Mandela put an end to Absa report, says former British spy

Though public protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane made former president Thabo Mbeki the focus of her Absa report on why the government ditched going after billions ‘donated’ to Bankorp, a company bought out by Absa, Michael Oatley, the man who investigated the illegal deal, said it was Mandela who was to blame for not pursuing the case further.

Letters sent by Oatley to Mkhwebane’s office show how Oatley was adamant that Mbeki was not at fault, as he had provided encouraging advice on the Ciex report and was keen to pursue it.

“He particularly liked my suggestion that we would provide revelations about systemic Afrikaner white corruption to balance the much lesser [then] instances of black official corruption, which were being hyped by an unfriendly media,” said Oatley of Mbeki.

The Ciex report was commissioned by the government in 1997 after Oatley approached it to investigate and possibly recover billions that had been looted and siphoned by the apartheid state under the premise of business bailouts or ‘lifeboats’. The report was shelved by the government and nothing was done to further investigate the possibility that money could be recovered.

ALSO READ: Lead investigator of public protector’s Absa report has quit 

According to the Sunday Times, Oatley says this was because Mandela was briefed on the issue during ministerial meetings and finally decided to back out of looking into the report and its recommendations on how to recover the money because he did not want to alienate Afrikaners with whom secret deals were agreed prior to democracy.

“After that it all came unstuck. When he learned of it, President Mandela ruled that moving against Absa, and effectively the Afrikaner financial nexus, was inconsistent with his policy of reconciliation [and with] secret pre-change agreements,” he says. “By then, of course, Absa had made itself the ANC’s best friend.”

Oatley explains there are missing documents that were key to his own report and that Mkhwebane did not use them. He says these documents were given to Thuli Madonsela when she began the probe in 2011.

These documents include three reports compiled by Ciex about the Absa lifeboat, with detailed recommendations on how the money could be recovered; specimen criminal charges to be brought against former Reserve Bank governor Chris Stals; Oatley’s correspondence with Mbeki and former State Security Agency boss Billy Masetlha and notes of meetings with cabinet ministers.

Bankorp was awarded R1.5 billion in the 80s. The money was disguised as a loan and paid by the South African Reserve Bank at an interest rate of 1%. Absa bought out Bankorp from the majority shareholder, Sanlam, and says it repaid the loan.

However, the report compiled by Mkhwebane indicates that Absa loaned the money back to the Reserve Bank at an interest rate of 16% and that the Reserve Bank is actually owed R2.25 billion in interest fees.

READ MORE: I entered into no such agreement with Absa – Stals

Chris Stals, who was the presiding governor at the time, said everything was above aboard. Barend du Plessis, the minister of finance who was consulted about the loan as the political head of the Reserve Bank, said the matter was a dead horse, and it would be impossible to retrieve the billions.

Du Plessis is the brother of AS du Plessis, who was a Sanlam director when the ‘lifeboat’ was approved.

“It is impossible to bring that dead horse back to life,” said Barend.

Anton Gildenhuys, chief actuary and group risk officer, said Sanlam had noted the implications of the public protector’s report and would comply if they were requested to provide any evidence or answer questions.

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