By Stefanie Fick
In Dudu Myeni’s evidence to the Zondo Commission on Wednesday, she used the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse’s (Outa) successful delinquent director case against her as a reason that she should be allowed to refrain from responding to questions on the SAA matter.
Myeni told the commission that Judge Ronel Tolmay, Outa and the SAA Pilots Association’s (Saapa) case had referred her delinquent director judgment to the National Prosecuting Authority for consideration of charges against her as she was concerned about incriminating herself.
She said the documents used by Outa-Saapa emanated from the commission’s work, and she queried whether we had permission from the commission to use those.
Myeni, who was declared a delinquent director for life, in May, has applied for leave to appeal the judgment. We and Saapa are opposing this and are additionally calling for the delinquency order to be enforced, pending an appeal.
The case against Myeni was based on an investigation which started in 2016. The summons was served on her in March 2017, well before the commission was set up in January 2018.
Documents and evidence for the case were obtained from many sources, including the commission, all of which were obtained legally.
In the Zondo Commission’s case, we obtained documents from the commission’s website which are available to the public who have the right to access documents on previous testimony at the commission, through this website.
Myeni is clearly doing everything she can to avoid providing information to the commission. The delinquency matter did not cover all the wrongdoing at SAA. Myeni should assist the commission in uncovering the truth and refrain from using Outa’s case against her as a deterrent in answering the important questions.
Our and Saapa’s case was limited by time constraints in the number of matters that we wanted to bring to the court, and matters such as the BNP Capital transaction were not raised in this case. She was, however, still found to be delinquent in her actions on other facts we did present.
The Zondo Commission will be digging into other matters that came in from other witnesses to the commission.
Myeni does not want this to happen, as these are issues for which she could face charges.
Stefanie Fick is the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse executive director: accountability division.
The Star