Directors of recycling plan have dodgy past

THREE years ago they were investigated for the alleged theft of employee retirement funds. Now they are running a multimillion-rand governmentsanctioned recycling plan.

Charline “Charlie” Kirk and Stacey Davidson were implicated in a Financial Services Board (FSB) investigation of Kopano Employee Benefits.

Kopano is part of trade union federation Cosatu’s investment arm. It allegedly stole more than R123-million from the Bosele National Provident Fund, which it administered on behalf of about 400 000 beneficiaries.

Davidson was Kopano’s operations executive at the time.

RTK Attorneys, a law firm that Kirk co-founded, was also implicated in the FSB’s report. It “suspiciously” received R21.87million from the fund.

Kirk and Davidson are now executive directors of the Recycling and Economic Development Initiative of South Africa (Redisa).

According to company records, Kirk’s co-founder at RTK Attorneys, Sam Robertson, is a director of Kusaga Taka Consulting, the management company for Redisa. It recycles old tyres, a plan that was given the go-ahead by Environmental Affairs Minister Edna Molewa towards the end of last year.

It is funded through a levy on tyre manufacturers and importers of R2.30 a kilogram, a cost that could be passed on to motorists. This works out to about R600-million a year on the volumes estimated in the plan.

The Department of Environmental Affairs appears not to have done any due diligence on Kirk and Davidson and their involvement in Kopano.

The FSB report raised suspicions of conflict of interest in Kopano’s appointment of RTK because Kirk’s family jointly owned property with Nasieyah Basadien, a director at Kopano, and her husband, Achmat.

Investigators also found that the families had other ventures together. The report has been handed over to the authorities for possible legal action.

Stacey Davidson confirmed that her brother, Bevan, worked for Achmat Basadien’s Datalab, which irregularly received R26million from Kopano, in August 2010 — about the time of the FSB investigation.

Asked whether the Department of Environmental Affairs had done any background checks on Redisa’s executives, its spokesman, Albi Modise, said the initiative had not

Government did not appoint the executives at Redisa

received any money from the government.

“It is an industry creation that is not set up by government, and it is crucial that you direct all these questions to them. Government did not appoint the executives at Redisa since it is not a state-owned outfit.”

RTK’s Robertson indicated that the payment made to the firm was legitimate because it was hired to provide legal services to Kopano. He also dismissed claims that there were conflicts of interest.

On the relationship between the Kirks and Basadiens, he said the firm was not aware of any conflict. “For Ms Kirk and the Basadiens to have private dealings with each other is to us not a problem, as it was disclosed.”

This week, Kirk said she could not comment on a report she had not had access to.