Acting chief justice Raymond Zondo, in the second part of the state capture inquiry report released this week, said it was unbelievable that Daniel Mantsha, Jacob Zuma’s former attorney, was appointed as Denel board chair despite having been disbarred.
Zondo surmised that this possibly confirmed that Mantsha was an appointee of the Gupta family, for whom he carried out their mandate to ransack the state-owned arms manufacturer.
Zondo submitted that Mantsha’s fitness to continue practising as a lawyer must be investigated, especially since he is a repeat offender. He had a role in bringing Denel to its knees.
Mantsha was disbarred as a lawyer in 2007 after many transgressions, largely for financial misconduct.
He was chairman of the Denel board in 2015, with the appointing minister, Lynne Brown, pleading ignorance of Mantsha’s deplorable past.
‘Mr Mantsha must have been chosen by the Guptas,’ Zondo said.
In the scathing high court judgment of 2007 that rescinded Mantsha’s licence to practise, he was found guilty of numerous acts of misconduct, mostly financial.
Zondo found it difficult to fathom that Brown would have missed such a judgment, which had been on public record for eight years at the time of Mantsha’s appointment.
Mantsha was introduced to Denel boss Riaz Saloojee by Gupta foot-soldier Salim Essa.
‘It is recommended that the Legal Practice Council should investigate how Mr Mantsha got readmitted, if he did get readmitted, as an attorney.
‘The Legal Practice Council should be made aware of the findings made by the commission against Mr Mantsha, so that that body may conduct such investigation as it may consider necessary to establish whether Mr Mantsha is fit and proper to practise as an attorney,’ said Zondo.
M.ASIF AMIN, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons