Please account, Mr

FINANCE MEC Phumulo Masualle had access to R500000 of taxpayers’ money for at least 24 hours during the Nelson Mandela mourning period last year.

Half was paid into his private account on December 7. The Dispatch can reveal today that before this money was returned on December 11 another R250000 was deposited into a special cheque account on December 10. A “pay-card” was given to him to cater for “unforeseen expenses”.

So for about a day he had access to all this money in his personal account and pay card.

This is in an extract from a treasury bank statement and an official response the Department of Finance released earlier this week as it fought to douse the Nelson Mandela slush fund scandal.

Several discrepancies were picked up by the Dispatch in the official response from treasury on May 9 to the transfer of R250000 into finance MEC Phumulo Masualle’s private account – a transaction that was reversed, allegedly at his request.

All week, attempts to seek explanations were fobbed off by the ANC and state. Today the Dispatch can reveal:

•  Bank statements were doctored;

 An undisclosed sum was paid into the account – and withdrawn – over and above the R250000 declared by treasury;

Only a portion of the money spent by Masualle is reflected on the statement; and

HoD Marion Mbina-Mthembu approved the transfers.

Masualle’s supporters spent the week attacking the media and defending his role.

Yesterday Mbina-Mthembu said she had full authority in terms of the ministerial handbook. “I gave the blessing because we have never issued a departmental credit card... please organise it and put it there and I left. Unfortunately for me and fortunately for you because you are libellous ... my team then decided ... I don’t know whether they did not know we never had a credit card they decided to move it to his personal account,” Mbina-Mthembu said yesterday.

“When we discovered that he didn’t want the money in his personal account it was recalled. What more do you then want?”

Her admission follows repeated attempts to establish who was behind the payments to Masualle. Mbina-Mthembu is now being investigated by the Hawks, whose spokesman, Paul Ramoloko, said she had been questioned in connection with a much wider investigation into Mandela funeral spending that also saw the Eastern Cape Development Corporation (ECDC) pay out over R22-million to service providers handpicked by treasury.

“We can confirm that our team has interviewed her in that office but there are no arrests yet.

“We not sure at this stage of how long will it take to arrest the culprits,” said Ramoloko.

A forensic report commissioned by the board of the ECDC has already uncovered irregular treasury approvals for the spending, which has cost CEO Sitembele Mase his job.

Our own scrutiny of treasury’s slush fund statement shows that of the R250000 paid in, R230000 was returned to finance on January 30, a month-and-a-half after Mandela’s burial.

“Out of this R20000 remaining in the business account, only an amount totalling R5243.58 was utilised (by Masualle) and to be accounted for in the departmental books, and was accompanied by the invoices,” Mzolisi Blouw, from the MEC’s office, said in a press release. The remainder – R14756.42 – was returned on February 13, leaving the account balance at zero, according to Blouw.

But simple calculations show that the debits on the bank statement reflect that just over R1900 was spent prior to the account being emptied.

Furthermore, a summary of transactions at the foot of the statement shows that R275992.90 was deposited into the account, and at closure, the same amount was withdrawn.

That means at least R25992.90 is unaccounted for, and taking into account the missing debits, the total rises to R29100.61.

There is clear evidence that some transactions have been omitted – the statement appears to have been deliberately folded over to hide certain figures.

Also, there are a total of five statement pages, only the first of which was given to the media.

Masualle ducked questions all week, pulling out of an arranged interview after his name was publicly put forward as premier candidate by the ANC.

During the party’s provincial working committee meeting on Monday, he faced little scrutiny and briefly gave his version, said two independent sources.

“He just told us that he reversed the money and that he did not ask for it. He told us that this was just a media ploy to influence the premiership debate,” the sources claimed.

ANC provincial secretary Oscar Mabuyane said yesterday: “No comment ... the chairperson gave us the explanation and we are comfortable with the explanation he gave us.”