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Malema rules EFF through fear, says suspended financial officer Adam Wakefield, News24, Johannesburg, 7 April 2015 Johannesburg - The suspended EFF chief financial officer (CFO), Wiekus Kotze, on Tuesday accused Julius Malema of ruling through fear, with party employees at the total mercy of its leadership. In a statement, Kotze said the party's leadership abused its power, and intimidated and threatened those who questioned it. Kotze was suspended at the end of November "without reasons". He was not paid his salary for the month even though he had put in the work, and up till Tuesday, had not been called to any disciplinary hearing. "Those who work for the EFF are at the total mercy of the leadership. As a result, a culture of fear reigns within the party. It is that fear that Julius [Malema] exploits to great advantage," he said. "My suspension by the leaders of the EFF has been utterly without basis and illegal. My so-called crime was questioning the financial practices of the party, but that is exactly what any good financial officer should do." Kotze said. Kotze said after joining the party, and later becoming CFO, he had access to all the EFF's accounts nationally and provincially. "My duties as CFO were similar to those in my role in GP [Gauteng], with the addition of managing payrolls, invoices and quotations. The actual payments at any given time were done or ordered by Julius [Malema], Floyd [Shivambu] and Leigh-Ann Mathys [commissar for stakeholder relations]," he said. "I was prevented from carrying out my duties according to the accepted standards of financial accounting. I don't recall ever being asked to load a payment where the requirements of legislation were met. Essentially, the requirement of three quotations as demanded by the Public Finance Management Act was never met." Kotze said in the two months that he was at head office, he realised there was no proper financial system in place, nor was good practise being followed. "My troubles started when I refused to load payments that were not in line with the law. Time and again, I was instructed to make payments without invoices. I kept being told the invoices would come, but they never did. This is illegal," Kotze said. He sought to introduce a financial management system to regulate finances within the party that were in line with the law. However, this intervention was rejected and Kotze said he was demoted to the Gauteng legislature around two and half months later. "I believe my refusal to break the law led to my ultimate suspension. I have not been given anything else to believe." Opened a case with police Following his suspension Kotze said he asked Kenny Kunene, a founding member of the EFF, to intervene on his behalf. "But Shivambu refused to listen and take action, and this left me with no option but to go to the police with many of the troubling things I knew. I don't want the information I have to be used as part of a political attack on the EFF," Kotze said. Kotze has opened a case of financial mismanagement against Malema and other leaders of the party, and stated that he knew Shivambu had opened offshore bank accounts. 'Malema does not pay tax' Kotze alleged that Malema does not pay tax, with the EFF doing so on his behalf, and by extension, the public. "In effect, he has spun it in such a way that SARS is paying itself," he said. He said the deal Malema had with the SA Revenue Service (SARS) was to pay R30 000 a month, deducted from his salary, to offset his tax bill. "What the taxman does not know is that Julius [Malema] gave the instruction that the EFF should give him a credit card to the value of R30 000, which has now been increased to R35 000," he said. "After paying the R30 000 to the taxman from his salary, he lives off money from the EFF for the rest of the month, but that money is public money and should never be paid to an MP." All EFF MPs made a 7% contribution from their salaries to the EFF, and on paper, Malema did the same but this was window dressing. "Because over and above the R35 000 credit card, Julius [Malema] obtained a second credit card with a limit of R100 000," the suspended EFF CFO said. "R135 000 a month is certainly not a bad budget to have in a month. One should ask why he needs the money. The same cards are being used at night clubs to buy booze. Julius [Malema] should please tell in which way whiskey is furthering the aims of the revolution." Kotze further said that he was confident the EFF had submitted fraudulent finances to Parliament, and suggested that the Friends of Julius Malema Trust was potentially a money-laundering scheme, with the trustees closely-connected politically with Malema and Shivambu. EFF spokesperson Mbuyiseni Quintin Ndlozi and Gauteng police were not immediately available for comment. - News24 From: http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Malema-rules-EFF-through-fear-says-su spended-financial-officer-20150407 -- -- You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected] . You don't have to put anything in the "Subject:" field. You don't have to put anything in the message part. All you have to do is to send an e-mail to this address (repeat): [email protected] . --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "YCLSA Discussion Forum" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. 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