Two attorneys charged with corruption at Fort Hare University and released on bond say their arrests were a political ploy to protect Eastern Cape Premier Oscar Mabuyane.
However, according to the state, the two made a total of R78,3 million through two businesses: Horizon Forensics and the legal practice Bradley Conradie and Halton Cheadle (BCHC), which were involved in a looting spree that nearly caused the institution to go bankrupt.
Directors of Horizon, Bradley Conradie and Sarah Burger, were detained in April along with thirteen other individuals who were suspected of being a part of a syndicate that had long-term operations at the institution. In 2018, university vice-chancellor Prof. Sakhela Buhlungu brought in the two to look into pervasive corruption within the organization.
They said that among the things they had discovered was academic fraud involving prominent politicians, such as Mabuyane, who they claimed they had given to the Hawks.
Mabuyane Has Refuted Any Misconduct.
Since their release on bond, they have claimed in media appearances that they are the victims of a political scheme. But according to the NPA’s charge, 14 payments were made to Horizon without a service level agreement (SLA) between 2020 and 2020.
The NPA instances show how Conradie’s second business, BCHC, was paid a total of R44,7 million in multiple installments without a service level agreement. Additionally, according to the prosecution, Horizon paid an R1 million bribe to secure Isaac Plaatjies’s Nahoon, East London, home.
The university’s director of investigation and vetting section, Plaatjies, is accused by prosecutors of playing a key role in the looting scheme and of facilitating payments from the institution to several service providers who have subsequently been taken into custody.
Conradie stated in an interview with Sowetan yesterday that the sum of money he gave Plaatjies was a business settlement for an agreement he intended to strike with Plaatjies following their August 2020 meeting.
“People are unaware that Isaac [Plaatjies] was employed by the university on a month-to-month basis without a budget and had no official position. I had considered going into business with him, but I later had second thoughts. There was nothing I could gain from him. We didn’t require employment from anyone. Conradie stated, “The shocking thing is that we were never questioned by the police regarding the payment, which I knew was for Isaac’s house.”
Conradie claimed that his company would typically receive a small portion of the sum that they agreed upon with the university and that the sums he received from the university—for which he has not yet obtained an audit—were exaggerated by individuals within the institution.
“It appears that the investigators visited the institution and requested that staff members type specific numbers next to our names. We were only receiving a meager salary from UFH since we had to pay third parties for some services. Meals and flights were paid for by us. We were highly liable,” Conradie remarked.
He continued by saying that a portion of the funds they got from the university went toward past-due bills.
“Deliveries were frequently postponed for as long as six months. Even if you got paid each month, these checks were frequently for past-due bills, according to Conradie.
The SLA was only signed by Conradie’s companies in March, which was less than two weeks before Burger and he were taken into custody in Cape Town.
The university’s CFO inquired about businesses that were receiving payments without service level agreements (SLAs) in May 2022. The CFO directed the institution to stop doing this and advised that any work worth more than R1 million should be put out to tender or that any variation from established procedures should be asked beforehand. Nevertheless, in spite of this, Horizon and BCHC were both able to get their bills paid.
Conradie stated that since universities were exempt from the Municipal Finance Management Act and the Auditor-General’s audits, there was no legal necessity to engage into a SLA.
“Also, police don’t understand how SLA work,” he stated.
Burger claimed that all they had to do was sign up for the organization’s database.
“We realized the university was a bad payer, so in 2020 we pushed for a SLA.” We strongly advocated for its signing in 2022 and 2023. The university threatened to withhold our payment until we signed, so we didn’t sign it until March of this year. We were already leaving the university at the time,” Burger remarked.
The two claimed that by the time the SLA was signed, Prof. Buhlungu had lost interest in them because he thought they were backing Plaatjies.
Isaac [Plaatjies] was portrayed by the VC (Buhlungu) as someone who can accomplish anything. We had faith in him because he was a driven individual with networking skills (Plaatjies). “We felt like he (Plaatjies) betrayed us,” Conradie remarked.
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