Accountant Graham Maddock continued his technical testimony in the Fidentia embezzlement case in the Western Cape High Court.
|||Cape Town - Accountant Graham Maddock continued his technical testimony in the Fidentia embezzlement case in the Western Cape High Court on Tuesday.
Prosecutor Jannie van Vuuren led Maddock through numerous pages of Fidentia Holdings' bank account records from 2003.
When asked who instructed him to pay certain clients from this account, Maddock often replied “Mr Brown”, to which former Fidentia Asset Management chief executive J Arthur Brown shook his head.
Brown has been charged with four counts of fraud, two counts of corruption, one count of money-laundering and two counts of theft.
Van Vuuren asked the accountant about a R210 000 payment that June for “Paradys Eiland”.
“Paradys Eiland was a property in Hartenbos that the company purchased because it had an interest in it,” Maddock explained.
Judge Anton Veldhuizen wanted to know which company he was referring to. Maddock said he was referring to Fidentia Holdings.
“It was a piece of ground that the group wished to develop,” he said.
Veldhuizen asked who the ground was registered to, or who the contact person was, but Maddock could not recall.
“I never saw the land, but I believe it was undeveloped,” Maddock said.
Van Vuuren quizzed him about a payment described as motor vehicle costs in May 2003 to Table Bay Motors.
Maddock explained that four cars were purchased from the dealer; two Toyota Saharas and two Toyota Lexus'. Van Vuuren said the invoice also showed towbars and fridges were bought for each of these vehicles, which Maddock confirmed.
The biggest chunk of money that went missing from Fidentia was R1.47 billion invested by the Living Hands Umbrella Trust, which paid money from the mineworkers' provident fund to the widows and orphans of workers killed in mine accidents.
The Transport Education and Training Authority had invested about R245 million.
The trial continues. - Sapa