GAUTENG LIQUOR HEAD FIRED AS HIS AGENCY DIDN'T EXIST

Mr Keith Khoza, the former head of the Gauteng Liquor Board, was fired in September last year because he had been appointed as a consultant to set up this agency which in fact did not exist in law.

This was the explanation given today by Gauteng Economic Development MEC Firoz Cachalia in an oral reply in the Gauteng Legislature to my questions on this issue.

According to Cachalia, Khoza was appointed in terms of a consultancy agreement to set up the Liquor Board as an agency, and his contract expired in March last year. It was renewed on a monthly basis and was terminated in September last year. Cachalia said that he took the view that it was unwarranted to pay him for heading an agency that did not exist.

Khoza was paid two months notice, but contested this in the Labour Court which dismissed it by ruling that it was not urgent. He then went to the CCMA, and received an extra payment of R256 000.

A further revelation by Cachalia was that he had set up a forensic inquiry by the Resolve Group to investigate allegations of fraud made against Khoza, but no evidence was found such as would justify an adverse finding against him, but it did establish that there were "too many deviations in the procurement process" and his conduct was criticized with regard to a contract by Lefatshe Technologies.

In my view, this is a farcical saga that has wasted a lot of public money. Khoza was paid R1.54 million a month, which is much higher than the maximum civil service salary of R1.356 million. I estimate that he received about R0.5 million total payout on leaving the agency, which was notorious for managerial problems and delayed granting of licences.

Cachalia has been very secretive about this, and only made this public when formally asked in the Legislature.

It reveals something of the pile of irregularities when the department was run by former MEC Paul Mashatile. Khoza has been identified as a key member of Mashatile's so-called "Alex Mafia", and has had a controversial career in various positions in the Gauteng Provincial Government, including head of the Gauteng Economic Development Agency.

I believe that there is more rot to be uncovered and Cachalia should be more open about the problems that he has inherited in this department.

Statement by Jack Bloom MPL, Democratic Alliance Gauteng Corruption Spokesman, March 23 2010

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