|
Niehaus's Lobola Splurge |
| Publication |
Cape Times |
| Date | 2009-02-20 |
| Reporter |
Shaun Smillie, Gill Gifford, Louise Flanagan, Niels Posthumus |
| Web Link | www.capetimes.co.za |
Just weeks before Carl Niehaus confessed to his fraudulent activities and
financial woes, he paid R35 000 lobola for his
new wife.
The Star has learnt that Niehaus, 49, made the lobola payment for
his third wife, Mafani Gunguluza, 31, in
two instalments, at a time when he was battling to pay the rent on his luxury
mansion in Midrand. The lobola party was apparently held a few weeks ago at
Gunguluza's home.
The couple apparently married in September last year. Die Burger reported that
in their prenuptial agreement the month before,
Niehaus listed his personal wealth as R12,5-million.
Gunguluza is described as an experienced and innovative businesswoman in her
biography on the website of M&C Investments Holdings, her business with Niehaus.
She is a director of several companies and a member of the South African Women
Entrepreneurs' Forum.
M&C Investments Holdings is not registered. However, both Niehaus and Gunguluza
are directors of the similarly named R&C Investments Holdings, which they both
joined in February last year.
Online documents and websites linked to Niehaus have been deleted, while the
website for M&C Investments Holdings has been removed.
Niehaus's blog on LitNet, Carl se Agtertuin (Carl's backyard), is gone. Online
copies of his CV - with false claims of qualifications and connections - have
gone.
On Thursday, one of Niehaus's friends spoke of his disappointment. Bart Luirink,
editor of the Dutch Zuidelijk Afrika Magazine and a former member of the Dutch
anti-apartheid movement, has known Niehaus for years.
At one stage, he lived near the Niehaus family in Yeoville, Joburg, and often
met him while Niehaus was the ambassador in Holland.
"I think he was really one of the best we ever had in Holland," Luirink said of
Niehaus's ambassadorship. "He was a very good friend of the Queen's (Beatrix)
husband, (late) Prince Claus."
Luirink admitted now doubting the truth of Niehaus's claim in 2001 that he had
leukaemia, saying he thought this was an excuse to resign his ambassadorship,
and even his June 2008 claim that he was gang-raped in prison the night before
he was sentenced for treason in 1983.
"I don't know about the whole rape story, whether it was a PR exercise," he
mused.
"We're puzzled. If it happened, it must have been a horrifying experience. But
since so many things did not happen and are not true, I start to question it."
Like others, Luirink questioned why Niehaus aired his rape claims on his blog in
an open letter written to his 11-year-old daughter, calling it
"perverse" to write such a thing to a
child.
Luirink said that if the claim had been invented, Niehaus may have
done this to increase his political credibility.
He said Niehaus had been bitter about the ANC under then president Thabo Mbeki
having no place for whites who had been part of the struggle during the
apartheid years, in favour of whites who joined the ANC after its unbanning.
"So emphasising your participation in the struggle might be a tool for
belonging," he said.
Luirink wrote a lengthy open letter to Niehaus last week on his blog in response
to the Mail & Guardian's interview with Niehaus in which he admitted his fraud
and financial woes.
But after a week of further revelations of Niehaus's fraud, Luirink wrote a
second, angrier blog. "Seek a therapist, Carl. Goodbye," he wrote.
Yesterday, the leader of the opposition in the Gauteng Legislature, Jack Bloom,
claimed that the document Niehaus forged when he was CEO of the Gauteng Economic
Development Agency (Geda) was not just a letter to a business as he claimed, but
the minutes of Gauteng's provincial executive.
Premier Paul Mashatile was finance MEC at the time and responsible for Geda.
"It was a forged version of the minutes of the executive council conferring
authority on a company to lease buildings for government departments. This is
why it had the signatures of four MECs, including Mashatile, Ignatius Jacobs,
Angie Motshekga and Khabisi Mosunkutu," said Bloom.
"I find it hard to believe that any of these MECs did not hear about these
forged signatures. If they did know, yet did nothing to ensure a prosecution,
they were an accessory to corruption after the fact.
"They can all expect a visit from a friendly detective to explain themselves in
this matter."
Bloom also accused Mashatile of hiring Niehaus as CEO of Geda in 2005 contrary
to procedures, because the job was not advertised.
With acknowledgements to