Officials tear into Lekota over audit of Cope funds

THE leadership of Cope, including president Mosiuoa Lekota, has been accused of resisting efforts to scrutinise the party's finances.

Several provincial leaders of the party have told Sowetan that Lekota was behind attempts to stall a long-awaited forensic audit into the party's financial records.

This comes after a number of transfers involving large sums of money were allegedly made into several leaders' accounts, including those of Lekota, expelled treasurer Hilda Ndude and deputy president Smuts Ngonyama.

Party officials from Western Cape, Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng allege that Lekota and some national office bearers were reluctant to have Cope's finances audited.

They say this is because they would be implicated in the misuse of party funds, including parliamentary caucus money that was lent out to the embattled party's Northern Cape administration.

Parliament's rules state that caucus funds are allocated to each party to be used for research purposes and other parliamentary business.

Sowetan is in possession of a letter in which Ndude, who was expelled from the party early this year, asked for

an advance of R168000 "in order to assist the Northern Cape".

In the letter, dated October 14 2010, Ndude promises that the money "will be reimbursed by no later than November 5 2010".

In another letter (October 15 2010) authorising payment of the money, Cope MP and acting chief whip Dennis Bloem's signature appears alongside that of Juli Kilian.

Lekota yesterday dismissed as "rubbish" claims that he was reluctant to have an audit. "It's all rubbish. I'm not an accounting officer and we have not stolen anything."

He referred further queries to Bloem, who said he was in a meeting and could not respond immediately.

Cope national spokesman Buks Mahlangu could not explain what the large sum of money was used for and whether it had been returned.

However, he admitted that there had been some resistance to the idea of a forensic audit. The decision to have an audit was reached at the party's central national committee meeting on February 27. But no company had since been given the task of auditing Cope's books.

"There were some individuals who were not comfortable with it (forensic audit), but we had to force it through," Mahlangu said.

"We had agreed that we should have an audit to find out what has been taken out and what happened to those funds."

Provincial secretaries in Gauteng, Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and Western Cape yesterday told Sowetan that their provinces would support moves to force Lekota to explain the circumstances under which R98000 of Cope's parliamentary funds were transferred into his account and why Ndude was expelled, while Lekota remained parliamentary leader.

A senior KwaZulu-Natal provincial leader - speaking on condition of anonymity - said: "Lekota is really fighting members of Cope using parliamentary funds. That is why he wants to control the monies."

Sowetan understands that the Hawks are in the process of obtaining court permission to access the bank accounts of Cope's leaders. - molatlhwao@sowetan.co.za