The obscene greed behind the Tongaat mall disaster

DANIEL Jagadasan Singh - the man behind the Tongaat mall collapse - has been exposed as having:

Been the subject of a police investigation in 2009 for money-laundering and tax evasion;

Stolen his dead brother's identity to avoid being charged with R80-million fraud;

Changed his name at least three times;

Been fined in August 1997 for offering a bribe to have shoddy construction work overlooked;

Ignored several summonses instructing him to stop construction of the Tongaat mall for building illegally; and

Ignored a final summons to cease work immediately, issued six days before the building collapsed.

This week, as the horror collapse of the multistorey shopping complex 37km north of Durban unfolded, the complex life of Singh unravelled too - revealing a multi-agency investigation into the 50-year-old millionaire that started in 2009.

According to a source with close knowledge of the investigation, Singh - who has prior fraud convictions - faced a long prison term if convicted of defrauding state-owned development bank Ithala of R80-million.

The money was intended for the development of a 10-storey luxury residential apartment complex in Durban's Waterfront Precinct, once the city's residential and commercial development flagship project. Construction began in 2005.

The development, Dolphin Whispers, backed by several prominent personalities, including Nandi Mandela, granddaughter of Nelson Mandela, was never completed, following delays, defective workmanship, a shortage of funds to pay staff - and the refusal in 2007 of an architect and an engineer to sign legal certificates after serious structural defects were found.

When Ithala began to investigate the "serious financial shortfalls", the developers, Dolphin Whispers 23 Trading, went into liquidation.

Although Singh is not listed as a director, the police have been investigating his involvement.

Some of the directors and shareholders were investigated for fraud. However, the source said, several weeks before Singh was to appear in court to be charged, his brother, Ronnie Jagadasan, who would have been 56 today, died.

Singh, whose legal name is Daniel Jagadasan, promptly "assumed his dead brother's identity and then changed his name to "Jagadasan Singh".

He then "furnished the prosecutor with the death certificate". The Ithala fraud investigation was subsequently closed.

According to the source, Singh has changed his name at least three times since 1997.

According to company registration records, Singh's business empire was launched in 2007 when he first registered businesses including Starwood Shopping Centre, Rectangle Property Investments and Rayfield Park Trading.

Despite the multi-agency investigation, no arrests have yet been made. Neither the police nor the Hawks would comment on the status of the investigation.

The probe into Singh revealed that another company owned by Singh's family, Starwood Civils & Earthworks, had been investigated by the South African Revenue Service and the police on "suspicion" of tax evasion and money-laundering.

The investigations, according to the source, found that Starwood Civils & Earthworks showed a R10-million turnover within just six months of being registered as a company in October 2008. Most of the money was said to have been deposited by Gralio Precast, owned by his family.

Singh's meteoric rise in Durban's construction industry has often raised questions, particularly among opposition political parties in the eThekwini municipality, about why companies linked to Singh's family appeared to be favoured by the municipality despite many complaints of shoddy workmanship and the investigations into his contracts.

One such investigation, in which he pleaded guilty to a bribery charge, was in August 1997, when he was fined for offering R4000 to a clerk to approve a section of condemned work where a pipeline was being laid.

Gralio Precast was nonetheless awarded a contract in 2011 to build 500 houses in Cornubia, a R25-billion mixed-used development and KwaZulu-Natal's first national cabinet-endorsed priority project.

To date, the company has been granted contracts worth about R277-million in the 1200ha development, which will incorporate about 24000 homes, schools, clinics and other public service infrastructure.

On Thursday, the municipality issued a statement denying that it had a special relationship with the family, particularly Rectangle Property Investments and Gralio Precast.

Construction of the 16000m², R220-million shopping mall in Tongaat began about six months ago and was scheduled for completion in April next year.

The developer, Rectangle Property Investments, was founded by Singh and is now run by his son, Ravi Jagadasan, 31.

Singh resigned as a director on February 20, leaving his son as the sole shareholder.

Yesterday, rescue teams, using fibre-optic cameras and other specialist equipment, were still searching through the debris.

The eThekwini municipality, which had been trying to stop the construction of the mall since March, has accused Rectangle of building illegally and failing to obtain planning permission.

City manager S'bu Sithole, who has described the accident as the "city's worst disaster", accused Rectangle of defying a court order to stop work.

The building had apparently failed to comply with city by-laws.

Sithole said that, after the developer ignored the order, the city went to court, lodging papers on September 26.

Papers filed in the High Court in Durban reveal that Jagadasan brushed off summonses and ignored an interim order granted in September and a final order granted on November 14, both ordering work to cease immediately.

Through it all, construction continued unabated - apparently because he was in a rush to finish the development to avoid construction cost increases and penalties of R103000 a day from prospective tenants.

At the time of the accident, the city was filing a contempt of court application against him.

In 2008, Singh was a central figure in the controversial resale of Durban Transport buses to the municipality. Singh was chairman of Remant Alton Land Transport, a company that bought the city's buses for R70-million in 2003, only to sell them back to the municipality for R405-million while continuing to run the service.

Singh has close ties to top politicians and is an ANC funder. A senior provincial police officer involved in the investigation said the wealthy contractor used his fortune to build an "iron ring" of powerful politicians and high-ranking police officials to ensure that the case never went to court.

Bheki Cele, national police commissioner at the time, yesterday denied knowing of any investigation of Singh.

Singh is a former business partner of President Jacob Zuma's nephew and taxi tycoon Mandlakapheli Gcaba in Remant. Other directors included a former ANC KwaZulu-Natal treasurer, Dr Diliza Mji, and Lawrence Mazibuko, who reportedly once served as Zuma's bodyguard.

savidesm@sundaytimes.co.za

pillayt@sundaytimes.co.za