Cape Town - Anti-crime activist Hanif Loonat’s legal quest against the City’s housing maintenance department and a Cape Town construction company scored an unexpected goal when the State brought charges against two City employees, two directors of the company and four of their employees.
Loonat has joined forces with Cape Coloured Congress councillor Fadiel Adams in his fight against the City and Ilitha Painters and Decorators trading as The Construction Co (TCC) for allegedly defeating the ends of justice in connection with a tender from the City’s Housing Maintenance Department.
Loonat and Adams were lodging their complaint with police against a list of City officials for allegedly defeating the ends of justice when they heard about the arrests.
The complaint they were lodging is with regards to a multimillion rand fraud complaint Loonat lodged, requesting the investigation of TCC in October 2020, the same issue the arrests were made for.
Asked about Loonat’s and Adams’s allegations against the five senior City officials in a statement they released yesterday, the City said it had noted the contents of the statement but that there were a number of inaccuracies in it.
The City said: “There have been no delays in the City of Cape Town’s investigative, legal and labour processes.
“The investigation into the alleged allegations has been finalised and the final report and its findings are being studied. Labour Relations is being consulted on the findings and City will respond decisively where required.”
TCC was charged at the Cape Town Magistrate’s Court in its capacity as a service provider for the City while the eight people arrested and charged were Asif and Abdul Karrim Khan (TCC directors), Uwais Khan, Irfaan Khan, Craig Kannemeyer, Abdulatief Abrahams (TCC employees), Adam Majiet and Alistair Stanbul (City officials).
The State’s case was that TCC, its directors and employees, allegedly supplied false invoices to the City and misrepresented some of the work they charged for as completely finalised.
The State also said that Majiet and Stanbul had allegedly allowed the invoices to be authorised even though they knew the work was not completed.
All of the accused, who are facing a charge of fraud estimated at R2.5 million, were released on bail. The State did not oppose bail but called for bail conditions to be set.
Out on bail, Asif Khan said: “We will co-operate fully with the legal proceedings. We remain confident it will again be shown that the allegations levelled against us are baseless.”
Last month, Loonat complained the WC National Prosecuting Authority was slow to pursue his multimillion-rand fraud complaint against TCC and alleged the NPA was compromised.
The NPA denied Loonat’s claims and said the matter was only postponed to allow the magistrate to familiarise herself with the case and deal with the application.