Letter backdated to validate Fidentia boss' spending: report

A letter was backdated three years to substantiate why ex-Fidentia boss J Arthur Brown spent an investor’s funds on beach houses, it was reported on Thursday.

This was said by chartered accountant and former Fidentia financial director Graham Maddock in the Western Cape High Court on Wednesday, the Cape Times reported.

He testified that R800 000 of Fundi Projects’ funds were used as a deposit on two Cape Town houses — one in Sunset Beach and the other in Milnerton.

A further R11 million belonging to the state-owned Transport Educational Training Authority (Teta) was used to cover the balance.

Maddock said the houses were in the name of a trust of which Brown had control. Brown lived in the one house and used the other as a guesthouse.

He told the court that Brown’s associate Steven Goodwin wrote a letter to substantiate why the funds were used to pay off the properties, dating it May 13, 2003, when it was actually written in 2006.

He reportedly acknowledged that the letter was written because Fidentia had been under investigation by the Financial Services Board at the time.

Brown faces four counts of fraud, two counts of corruption, one count of money-laundering and two counts of theft.

He was arrested in 2007 in one of the biggest financial scandals South Africa has seen.

The State alleges that Brown ran a pyramid scheme and used investors’ funds for his personal gain.