Those making allegations of state capture are the most corrupt – Lucky Montana

Former Prasa CEO Lucky Montana has made a submission to the commission of inquiry into state capture, and has made himself available to give testimony in August.

His testimony will focus on the crisis that befell Prasa and why he resigned as CEO.

Montana, who has come up himself in the commission’s testimony, intends to expose corruption from officials at the rail agency.

Montana says in a letter to the commission that he will seek to show at the inquiry that the problems at Prasa were as a result of a “major battle for control” of the rolling stock fleet renewal programme, “to the tune of R53 billion”.

In the letter Montana also says he will “demonstrate that those making allegations of state capture and corruption are themselves the most corrupt.”

“Prasa was never captured by any of the forces during my tender,” he claims.

A scathing judgement handed down by the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) in December last year found that Montana attempted to cover up his role in various corrupt transactions, misled the new Prasa board about a complaint made to the public protector and then failed to respond to this complaint.

READ MORE: Montana claims he fought off a bid to change the PRASA board

He has, however, long maintained that he is innocent.

After the SCA judgment came out, Montana launched an attack on the court, calling it a “travesty of justice”, apparently because he was not allowed to participate in proceedings.

He also told at the parliamentary inquiry into Eskom at the beginning of 2018 that he resisted a political attempt to impose a new board at the entity that would be favourable to the Gupta brothers and help them secure contracts in a locomotive tender considered one of the biggest in the world.

He told the portfolio committee on public enterprises he threatened to call a media briefing to expose plans in 2014, driven by then transport minister Dipuo Peters and former ANC treasurer-general Zweli Mkhize, to change the Prasa board after the Gupta family failed to secure a contract with China South Rail. The plans even briefly included a proposal to impose Mzwanele Manyi, who recently took over the Guptas’s media interests as the chairperson of the entity.

(Compiled by Daniel Friedman)

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