Inside Guma, Olopeng bribery and corruption case
Sharon Mathala | Friday July 31, 2015 17:59
The documents seen by Mmegi are affidavits in the ongoing court case against the two MPs. The court case will resume before chief magistrate Lenah Oahile-Mokibe at the Village Magistrate Court next Wednesday.
According to the affidavit deposed by the DCEC investigating officer, there is suspicion that a case of bribery and corruption does exist.Guma has since denied any wrong doing in his affidavit.
The DCEC investigator also confirmed in his affidavit that the “ …sum of P25 948 907.91 (Twenty five million nine hundred and forty eight thousand nine hundred and seven Pula ninety one Thebe) is the cumulative amount received by Guma’s account between 28th November 2014 and 20 May 2015. The application was meant to freeze the account as an instrument or proceeds of a crime.”
The investigating officer says that in his explanation Guma did not justify what exactly he was paid for with respect to the amount, which is in excess of P25million.
“The invoices were paid long after the purported fact had happened, the fact is that the contract or award was made in 2012 for the Kariba South Extension project in Zimbabwe, so the purports of the agreement were long achieved before it was allegedly signed.”
“Furthermore, the managing Director who allegedly signed on behalf of IRB Transport is a Sam Moyo [Guma] who is not the current Managing Director of IRB Transport nor was he or is a shareholder or director in the company,” says the DCEC investigator, who further added in his affidavit that the invoices Guma gave as his evidence are fabricated as they were paid more than a year and eight months later and they are not serialised.
Investigations from the DCEC also indicate that minister of Youth, Sport and Culture, Olopeng cannot distance himself from the case on the basis that he sold his shares. The DCEC claims that Olopeng resigned from the two MPs’ joint company as a director and not as a shareholder.
“It is not clear which office Olopeng is resigning from, he only resigned as a director of Leasing Services (their joint company) and not as a shareholder,” the DCEC suggests.
The DCEC investigation also revealed that the annual return forms with respect to Guma and Olopeng’s company and the shares the two filed for the years 2011 and 2012 filed on May 12, 2012 revealed that both Guma and Olopeng had each P1. 00 share respectively with 2998 at P1.00 each remaining unpaid. No share of 1500 at P1.00 each existed and are or were owned by the two shareholders at the time they were taken to court.
Guma in his affidavit had told the court on December 10, 2014 Olopeng resigned from their joint company, and sold 1500 shares valued at P3, 433, 072.79. This payment was made on December 11, 2014.
“This shows elements of deception or concealment of the parties to the purported agreement which is to the very root of my investigations and belief that a confiscation offence has been committed,” the DCEC investigator submitted.
In another document seen by Mmegi, a local bank, which is also the third respondent in the matter has distanced itself from allegations made by Guma that it had received instruction from the highest office, Office of the President to freeze Guma’s account.
According to the bank, they received a letter from the Financial Intelligence Agency (FIA) advising them that the agency had reasonable grounds to suspect that Guma’s company account, which they hosted, was involved in a commission financial offence and directed to halt or not to proceed with any debit transactions relating to the said account.
The bank claims that Guma’s account was blocked with effect from May 28, 2015 without his knowledge.
The bank says Guma visited the bank on May 29 2015 around 13:30 hours and attempted to make a transaction, where he was informed, a day later, that the bank had received instruction from the authorities to freeze his account but they did not give him reasons why.
“At no point did we state to Guma reasons for freezing his bank account or that it was on basis of an instruction from the Office of the President,” a bank representative said.
On June 9 2015, the bank received a court order from the Village Magistrate Court, signed by chief magistrate Oahile-Mokibe to freeze Guma’s company account.
Everything was transferred into a margin account and then frozen until the determination of the court. A total of P33 215 908 unpaid income tax and value added tax from Guma and a total sum of P975 723.39 unpaid income from minister Olopeng.
For his part, Guma in his affidavit explained that the huge sum of monies in his account are from a tender Sinohydro engaged him.
Guma said in 2013 the Chinese company, Sinohydro, engaged IRB Transport for the construction of Kariba South Power Extension Project, the multi-million dollar Zimbabwe project that was commissioned last year.
He said on January 20, 2013 Sinohydro transferred U$3, 200, 000 to Guma’s transport company. The Tati East legislator said on March 30, 2014, they issued the Chinese construction company an invoice of P45, 126, 190.
Another invoice was issued on August 18, 2014 valued at P153 029. Sinohydro paid Guma’s company an amount of U$3, 153, 029.94 on November 28, 2014.
Closing his statement Guma said on May 29, 2015 when he discovered that his company account was frozen there was a total amount of P982, 286 and not P25, 948, 907 as alleged by the DCEC.
Late last month, the DPP filed a miscellaneous application to freeze the accounts of Olopeng and IRB Transport.
According to the papers filed, IRB Transport is cited as first respondent, with Olopeng and Standard Chartered Bank Botswana as the second and third respectively.
No charges have been laid. The case was expected to continue this past Tuesday, but was postponed to next Wednesday. The court is expected to deliver a rule nisi.
However in court this past week, Guma’s lawyer Moses Kadye said they intend to file more affidavits when the case resumes. He said there were new matters which they needed to deal with.