‘Teta must talk on missing millions’

The government was last week seeking the same answers that FTW was looking for in our May 24 issue: What is the Transport Education Training Authority (Teta) doing to recover the more than R150m still outstanding from the Fidentia saga – widely regarded as one of the biggest corporate scandals in SA? Former Teta CEO Piet Bothma was implicated in that scandal after he was said to have received a bribe of about R6m to facilitate the transfer of investments worth over R200m. The Portfolio Committee on Higher Education and Training demanded that current Teta CE, Maphefo Anno-Frempong, appear before it last week (June 5) to present a report on Teta’s plans to retrieve these public funds. An amount gathered from companies in the freight industry – and based on a proportion of their turnover. This was a loss which had nearly hamstrung Teta’s ability to refund companies with their outlays on officially approved employee training courses. Also, these missing funds could have contributed immensely to skills development in the country, given the current shortage of skills and training, according to a senior member of the portfolio committee. The amount that was invested in Fidentia was over R200.3m, FTW was told. Some time after the scandal broke six years ago, R15m was in fact repaid. So, in the claims documents Teta submitted to the curators, R185m was approved as a claim. And R33.3m was received by Teta from the first distribution account made by the curators – leaving a balance of R151.7m still outstanding. Anno-Frempong told parliament she expected further payments to be made in due course from the second distribution. That was more or less what Anno-Frempong told parliament. However, she also implied that some of the concerned companies which had lost out on training during Teta’s tight times had threatened reprisals through the press to further damage the reputation of the authority. “We have received a lot of negative publicity‚ with some stakeholders threatening to take us to the media‚” she said – but without identifying these “stakeholders”. But what she revealed to parliament didn’t answer that original question, just as her information released to FTW did not fully answer our own query. And the MPs who listened to this report were not pleased with the presentation and sent Anno-Frempong back to her office with a flea in her ear – and a parliamentary order to prepare a “comprehensive” report on the issue. Committee chairman Ishmael Malale said a comprehensive report explaining all the activities‚ decisions‚ people involved‚ as well as the entity’s plans and progress report in its quest to recoup the funds‚ would help the committee understand the issue better. “There are several issues that need to be clarified by the entity in order for us to be informed on this matter because we have only heard about it through the media since the scandal broke‚” he added. “The comprehensive report must encapsulate current investments by Teta with any investment institutions in order to ensure non-recurrence of unsecured endowments.” Teta was also expected to present its strategic and annual performance plan for the 2013/14 financial year at this presentation to the portfolio committee, but this was not forthcoming. Alan Jeftha‚ the training authority’s attorney, told MPs that a comprehensive report would be submitted to parliament in due course. The report would‚ among other things‚ outline what lessons‚ especially in terms of investment‚ Teta had learned from the Fidentia debacle. Also, this week the Financial Services Board (FSB) is scheduled to appear before Parliament’s standing committee on finance to discuss the recent court case of former Fidentia boss J Arthur Brown. At issue is the fact that Brown was effectively only given a slap on the wrist for his part in the Fidentia debacle. This after the Western Cape High Court fined him R150 000 and gave him suspended prison sentences of 18 months each for the two fraud convictions.