EXCLUSIVE: Police hot on heels of tycoon Majali

Police are hunting "Oilgate " kingpin Sandi Majali, whom they want to arrest on fraud charges.

Majali is being sought by the Pretoria Commercial Crimes Unit for allegedly “hijacking” a billionrand company from a Gauteng businesswoman and her brother.

He and seven others are alleged to have fraudulently listed themselves as directors of Kalahari Resources and booted the siblings off the board.

Investigating officer Captain Amos Nhlapo yesterday said police had been searching for Majali for about two weeks, visiting his home in Sandton as well as his offices several times.

“We have been calling both his cellphone numbers almost every day and he doesn’t answer. It doesn’t go to voicemail so we can’t leave messages,” said Nhlapo.

However, Majali’s lawyer, John Ngcebetsha, last night said he was not aware that his client was being sought by the police.

“As far as I am aware, there are no police looking for him. I was with my client today [yesterday],’’ he told The Times.

“In the event of anyone in the police looking for my client, they are free to contact me.”

On September 15, Acting Judge Fayeza Kathree-Setiloane ruled in favour of Kalahari directors

Daphne Mashile-Nkosi and her brother, Brian Mashile, ordering that Majali and the seven others be removed from the company’s list of directors.

The seven others are Maria Carter, Stephen Khoza, Elvis Ndala, Nothando Nkosi, Roberto Rizzo, Haralambos Sferopoulos and Dlamini Welhencia. Mashile-Nkosi said in court papers that Kalahari Resources was a “very lucrative company, which had in excess of R1-billion in its bank account”.

Yesterday, she told The Times: “The wheels of justice are beginning to turn. It gives us comfort that the police are doing their job.”

“The cost of dealing with all of this took its toll,” Mashile-Nkosi said.

The company is working on a R6.8-billion project in the Northern Cape town of Kuruman, and on a R4.2-billion manganese mining project in Eastern Cape.

Majali and the seven others allegedly fraudulently listed themselves as directors on the database of the Co mp a nies and Intellectual Property Registration Office (Cipro) in

August .

Shortly after the judgment in the Johannesburg High Court, the docket was sent to the police for investigation.

Nhlapo said after the docket was studied by the Director of Public Prosecutions, he was assigned to the case and told that the eight should be arrested for fraud under the Companies Act.

Nhlapo said that, after much “ducking and diving”, police made a breakthrough yesterday when they arrested three of the eight.

Officers arrested Khoza, along with Ndala and Sferopoulos, at their offices in Orange Grove, Johannesburg. Khoza was arrested at about midday and the others shortly afterwards.

Khoza, Sferopoulos and Ndala are being detained at the Pretoria Central police station and will appear in a Johannesburg court today.

“We are still waiting for final word from the prosecutor, but they will in all likelihood go to court [today],” Nhlapo said.

The police say they are confident that they will soon arrest the other suspects. In papers put before the Johannesburg High Court in September, Daphne Mashile- Nkosi and Brian Mashile said:

“For every hour they are recognised by Cipro as directors, the interests of Kalahari Resources and innocent third parties who might rely on that information are severely prejudiced.”

Mashile-Nkosi and her brother brought their application to court after discovering in August that Majali and the others were listed as directors and they were not.

The court ordered that their names be restored to Cipro’s database as directors.

Majali first hit the headlines when his company, Imvume Management, benefited from several big government deals.

A 2004 UN report said that his company was involved in Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi “oil for food” scandal.

In the same year, it was reported he paid R40 000 for an ANC dinner in honour of Iraq’s deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz.

His company was later given a large oil exporting allocation by the Iraqi dictator.

Majali, whose company had a lucrative contract with state-owned PetroSA, donated R11-million to the ANC.

The party said in December that it had returned all the money.