‘We were puppets in political game’

Ringkink Sawmills at Lothair lost a lucrative contract with SA Forestry Companies Ltd (Safcol) after it declined to sell the family-owned business to a politically connected individual.

Father and son Dries and Johan Muller alleged they were approached by acting CEO Harvey Theron and a nonexecutive director of Safcol towards the end of 2015 with a proposal worth millions of rands.

“At that stage, we did not realise what this was all about, and that they were testing us. Only today we see the bigger picture and realise that we could have been the means to an end for the state capture of Komatiland Forests (KLF),” the Mullers said.

A source close to Safcol’s board explained that on the day CEO Nomkhita Mona and the CFO resigned, COO Francois de Villiers had to make a presentation regarding the future of Ringkink Sawmills.

Theron allegedly interrupted the presentation and indicated that he had met Dries and Johan and proposed work be outsourced to them.

However, Lowvelder was told Safcol had the skills set to do all that work and would have lost R43.75 million had it gone ahead.

Dries Muller said from the moment they indicated that Ringkink was not for sale, all doors closed on them.

“We never realised that we were puppets in some kind of political game,” he said.

He recalled an earlier meeting at Safcol’s head office in Centurion where somebody told them that they were “too honest” and would not “come right” with “these” people.

Theron told Lowvelder that the Safcol/Ringkink contract had expired.

“The Safcol board took a decision not to renew the contract due to financial losses suffered by Safcol.” –