The directors of the Gauteng-based company NJM Treatment and NDE Services (NJM) appeared at the Palm Ridge magistrate’s court for the third time on fraud charges.
The case was postponed to February 29 after Ian Small-Smith, the lawyer of accused number six, told the court that he has witnesses lined up to testify against the state and in favour of his clients.
Small-Smith requested the case to be postponed, citing that he was still consulting with witnesses.
“I request that we postpone the matter based on the fact that I am still in consultation with the witnesses. I ask that the matter be postponed to 29 February,” Small-Smith told the court in a recent appearance.
His request was not challenged by the prosecution.
He is representing Mark Douglas Smith, Alexander Elias Roditis, Vanessa Chungu, Raymond Crozier, Guy Phillip le Roux, Ronald James Hoy, NJM, Dasmar Engineering, and Thermo Jet.
Magistrate Sheron Soko-Rantao postponed the matter to February 29.
Small-Smith told Sunday World outside the court premises that the case will be interesting, claiming that tables will turn.
“This case is about to be interesting, as there will be people who will be arrested. I am in consultation with the witnesses. Send me a mail so that I can respond to any questions you might have,” said Small-Smith.
However, he did not respond to questions that Sunday World sent him last week.
Black directors used for fronting
The scandal of NJM and its directors came to the fore in 2003, when Sunday World reported that the company bosses were allegedly involved in the illicit business, where they had used black directors as fronts in order to score lucrative contracts at Eskom and Sasol.
Investigations by the Hawks revealed that NJM’s six directors, who are out on bail, had misrepresented themselves to Eskom and Sasol through submitting fraudulent tender documents to score contracts and that they had violated the broad-based black economic empowerment (B-BBEE) Act, as they used black people in fronting for the company.
In 2017, NJM bosses submitted cooked financial records to Eskom to get a tender.
A company shareholder, Baleseng Zinyana, who held 26% of shares in NJM, blew the whistle in her attempts to get the truth on what was happening within the entity’s financial records.
Sasol and Eskom lost at least R400-million combined through fraudulent activities allegedly committed by NJM bosses, who are now facing the music in court.
According to investigations by the police, NJM and its directors admitted to having misrepresented themselves during their legal battle with Zinyana, when the matter was first heard in the Johannesburg High Court.
They admitted during the court proceedings that they fraudulently supplied a signed shareholders’ agreement to Eskom for the purpose of misleading and misrepresenting NJM shareholding to win a tender at the struggling state-owned utility a few years ago.
Manipulation of financial statements
The shareholding agreement was intended to prove black business shareholder ownership of the company.
The directors made the confession when Zinyana, who held 26% of the shares, which she paid for in cash, took them to court after they refused to hand her the company’s accounting records to conduct an audit to determine the value of the business.
In her application, Zinyana said she suspected manipulation of the company’s financial performance as the management accounts did not tie up with the financial statements.
The application also stated that the financial records of the company were manipulated in order to reduce the company’s profit margin to below R50-million in 2019 to enable the entity, which also scored millions of rands from Sasol, to generate a BBBEE affidavit to maintain a BBBEE level 1 status.
Apparently, in an attempt to refute her claim that she was a shareholder and was not entitled to the records, they told the court that the BEE certificate was meant to mislead Eskom into awarding a tender.
Sasol had since terminated the contract with NJM as a result of Sunday World reporting about the matter.
