Meet Mr Scumbag
Contractor stole his dead brother’s identity to avoid R80m fraud charge
DANIEL Jagadasan Singh — the man behind the Tongaat mall collapse — has been exposed as having:
Been the subject of a police investigation in 2009 for money-laundering and tax evasion;
Stolen his dead brother’s identity to avoid being charged with R80-million fraud;
Changed his name at least three times since 1997;
Been fined in August 1997 for offering a bribe to have shoddy construction work overlooked;
Ignored several summonses instructing him to stop construction of the Tongaat mall for building illegally; and
Ignored a final summons to cease work immediately, issued six days before the building collapsed.
This week, as the horror collapse of the multistorey shopping complex 37km north of Durban unfolded, the complicated life of Singh unravelled too — revealing a multi-agency investigation into the 50-year-old millionaire that started in 2009.
According to a source with close knowledge of the investigation, Singh — who has prior fraud convictions — faced a long prison term if convicted of defrauding state-owned development bank Ithala of R80-million.
The money was intended for the development of an apartment complex in Durban’s Waterfront. Construction began in 2005.
The development, Dolphin Whispers, backed by several prominent people, including Nandi Mandela, one of Nelson Mandela’s granddaughters, was never completed after delays, defective workmanship, a shortage of funds to pay staff and the refusal in 2007 of an architect and an engineer to sign legal certificates after serious structural defects were found.
When Ithala began to investigate the “serious financial shortfalls”, the developers, Dolphin Whisper Trading 23, went into liquidation.
Although Singh is not listed as a director, the police have been investigating his involvement.
However, the source said, several weeks before Singh was to appear in court, his brother, Ronnie Jagadasan, who would have been 56 today, died.
Singh, whose legal name is Daniel Jagadasan, “assumed his dead brother’s identity, then changed his name to “Jagadasan Singh”. He then “furnished the prosecutor with the death certificate” and the Ithala fraud investigation was closed.
Ithala executive Themba Mathe said he was not aware of Singh’s involvement in Dolphin Whisper Trading 23, but company records show that his lawyer, Rajan Naidoo, sat on the company’s board.
Naidoo was also a director of Remant Alton Land Transport, a bus consortium that bought eThekwini municipality’s buses for R70-million in 2003 and sold them back to the city for R405-million.
Singh used his fortune to build an ‘iron ring’ of powerful politicians and high-ranking police officials
Naidoo is a shareholder in Walsh Trail Investments, a company owned by Singh’s family. He is also a director of African Construction, a company owned by businessman Sibusiso Ncube, who last month married Nomusa Dube, the province’s cooperative governance MEC and the ANC’s deputy provincial secretary.
On Wednesday, Naidoo issued a media statement stating that he was representing Rectangle Property Investments, developers of the collapsed Tongaat mall.
According to company registration records, Singh’s business empire was launched in 2007 when he registered numerous businesses, including Starwood Shopping Centre and Rectangle Property Investments.
Despite the investigation, no ar- rests have yet been made. Neither the police nor the Hawks would comment on the status of the investigation. But the probe into Singh revealed that another company owned by Singh’s family, Starwood Civils and Earthworks, had been investigated by the South African Revenue Service.
The investigations, according to the source, found that Starwood Civils and Earthworks showed a R10-million turnover within just six months of being registered as a company in October 2008. Most of the money was said to have been deposited by Gralio Precast, owned by Singh’s family.
Singh’s meteoric rise in Durban’s construction industry has often raised questions, particularly among opposition political parties, about why companies linked to Singh’s family appeared to be favoured by the municipality despite many complaints of shoddy workmanship.
One such investigation, in which he pleaded guilty to a bribery charge, was in 1997, when he was fined for offering R4 000 to a clerk to approve a section of condemned work where a pipeline was being laid.
Gralio Precast was nonetheless awarded a contract in 2011 to build 500 houses in Cornubia, a R25-billion mixed-used development and KwaZulu-Natal’s first national cabinetendorsed priority project. The company has been granted contracts worth about R277-million in the 1 200ha development.
On Thursday, the municipality denied that it had a special relationship with the family, particularly Rectangle Property Investments and Gralio Precast.
Construction of the mall in Tongaat was scheduled for completion in April. The developer, Rectangle Property Investments, was founded by Singh and is run by his son, Ravi Jagadasan, 31.
The eThekwini municipality, which had been trying to stop the construction of the mall since March, has accused Rectangle of building illegally.
City manager S’bu Sithole accused Rectangle of defying a court order to stop work.
Papers filed in the High Court in Durban reveal that Jagadasan ignored summonses and an interim order granted in September and a final order granted on November 14, both ordering work to cease.
Through it all, construction continued — apparently because he was in a rush to finish the estimated R220-million development to avoid construction cost increases and penalties of R103 000 a day from prospective tenants.
At the time of the accident, the city was filing a contempt of court application against him.
Bheki Cele, who was national police commissioner when the investigation was launched, said he was unaware of any investigation of Singh.
“It would have been investigated without the involve- ment of national [head office] . . . [and] if it [the investigation] was sent to national, it would have been sent to the Hawks,” he said. The Hawks did not respond to questions.
One of Gralio Precast’s largest contracts was with the provincial department of transport, then headed by Cele.
Although no details of the contract have been made available, testimony with the Com- petition Commission shows that the company was earning between R500 000 and R600 000 a month around 2008.
Cele also headed a task team to find a solution to eThekwini municipality’s bus crisis when Singh’s Remant Alton Land Transport ceased operations in Durban in June 2009 because of financial problems.
Singh has close ties to top politicians and is an ANC fun- der. A senior police officer in the investigation said the contractor built an “iron ring” of powerful politicians and senior police officials to ensure that the case never went to court.
Singh is a former business partner of President Jacob Zuma’s nephew and taxi tycoon Mandlakapheli Gcaba. Other directors included a former ANC KwaZulu-Natal treasurer, Diliza Mji.
Singh’s spokesman, Melanie Moodley, said he was “gravely affected” by the deaths and injuries and could not respond to questions.