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Mystery surrounds how Lucky Montana, the former boss of the Passenger Rail Agency of SA (Prasa), gained a sizeable salary increase as CEO just after he received an “employment offer” from a company that seems to exist only on paper.
Rapport, City Press’ sister paper, has obtained documents that show how, in 2012, Montana requested a steep pay hike from the Prasa board on the basis of a written job offer from Gypsum Fertilizer Company.
The company has no physical business premises, website or contact details. Its only director, Roy Moodley, is actively involved in at least one other company that has for years benefited from Prasa contracts.
In July 2012, the company sent its first employment offer to Montana, offering him an annual salary of R4.5 million to become Gypsum’s CEO.
The employment offer’s letterhead incorrectly spells the company’s name as Gypsum Fertiliser Company, while it is registered as Gypsum Fertilizer Company at the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC).
Montana apparently wasn’t quite happy with the offer.
In November of that year, Gypsum sent Montana a revised employment offer.
“After consideration and deliberation with the board, Gypsum Fertilizer Company agrees to your request for a revision of salary offer,” reads the letter.
The company then offered Montana a salary of R5.5 million a year.
Prasa then drew up a memorandum “to seek the approval of the [Prasa] board for the counteroffer of the group chief executive officer, Mr Lucky Montana, due to the offer of employment made by Gypsum Fertilizer Company (Pty) Limited”.
“The major risk of the CEO leaving Prasa at this stage is that Prasa is in the middle of implementing critical projects for the renewal of rolling stock, signalling and other modernisation initiatives, and these are still going through the procurement processes...” Montana’s office wrote.
The memorandum also sought an extension of Montana’s contract to March this year.
Montana’s office requested an “adjustment of his current salary by 20% to R5.7 million total cost to company per annum”.
Prasa’s annual reports show Montana’s salary increase wasn’t quite that drastic, but he did get a pay boost of more than double the rate of his previous pay hikes.
His salary climbed by nearly 12% (R4.7 million to R5.3 million) between the 2012/13 and 2013/14 financial years, as opposed to the increases of about 5% Montana received in other years.
Rapport this week struggled to find any evidence of Gypsum Fertilizer Company being or having been an actual commercial entity. The address on the letterhead of the employment office is that of a residential complex in Bedfordview, Johannesburg.
The company’s listed address at the CIPC is that of its auditing firm in Northcliff, also in Johannesburg.
CIPC records show Chockalingam Roy Moodley is the company’s only remaining director.
Royal Security, a Durban-based company of which Moodley is a director, has since at least 2010 secured contracts from Prasa worth millions of rands.
Rapport sent Moodley an SMS and an email and made various attempts to call him, but he did not respond.
Moodley is known as an ANC benefactor and is a friend of President Jacob Zuma’s.
The latter attended the Durban tycoon’s birthday bash in 2014.
“You’re a friend, comrade. We have something to do with you during elections, which we have discussed with you,” Zuma was quoted as saying at the party.
Kosta Katsouris, who signed the employment offers to Montana as Gypsum’s chair, this week said the company sought Montana’s services for a port construction project Gypsum would have been involved in.
He did not provide further details, but claimed that Moodley and Stanley Wayland, another former director, instructed him to write the employment offers.
Wayland, who when contacted said he was in Beijing before ending the call, did not respond to a text message.
Sfiso Buthelezi, an ANC MP who was Prasa’s chair at the time Montana requested the salary adjustment, denied that the offer from Gypsum formed the basis for the board’s approval of the pay hike.
“A company called 21st Century was appointed to do a scientific study of Montana’s salary, and it was determined that his salary was a little on the low side.”
Montana did not respond to phone calls or messages sent to him.
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