Amnesty Hearings — Cape Town — 2000-06-23

WOUTER J BASSON: Very well.  With the presentation of the pre-study where Mr Verster is present it has to be linked to a budget, this budget appears on the project file and on the administrative file, which is a separate file, reference is only made to the project file in respect of the annexure number on the project file.  So any person can take this financial file and it would not compromise any operational activity.  During the presentation with the Managing Director, he must sign the project file and he must also sign the financial file.  When I go to obtain funds by means of an advance, there is a form where I refer to the name of the project and the annexure number and I can obtain no funds unless there is authorisation.  The objective of this is to protect myself, and secondly, should there be an audit enquiry in the future, then if I'm asked if there was authorisation for this amount I can look at the project name and the annexure number, I can show it to the Auditor-General personnel members, they confirm that it had been authorised through a signature.  I don't know if I've answered your question.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Before you paid out money to anyone, did you need Joe Verster's approval?

WOUTER J BASSON: At all times.

MR KAHANOVITZ: So if an operative wanted R2 000 to pay to someone purely for monitoring purposes, Joe Verster would have to authorise that?

WOUTER J BASSON: Chairperson, I can say that at a point Mr Verster brought about a change, meaning that if persons were only involved with monitoring and no physical actions, then the Regional Manager could give authorisation and if it went further, then Verster's signature was required.

CHAIRPERSON: This dispensation with regard to the giving of authority related more to the nature of the project than the amount to be spent?

WOUTER J BASSON: That's correct.

CHAIRPERSON: So in other words if you had to do monitoring which involved flying in an aeroplane and hiring a motorcar and driving, at huge expense, staying in hotels and that sort of thing, if it was away from base and it came to a few thousand rands, just because it's monitoring it doesn't matter how much it was, the Regional Manager had authority rather than Mr Verster?

WOUTER J BASSON: No, Chairperson.  I understand the question.  There wasn't a limit placed on the amount but if it had been a large amount, Mr Verster had to be informed about it and he had to authorise it.  I'm talking more about maybe accommodation for a day or two, travel expenses, maybe amounts of about R1-2 000.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Now was Gen Webb's signature ever required on a document?

WOUTER J BASSON: This is outside of my area of responsibility, but Gen Webb had to authorise financial budgets.  Every three months there was a quarterly budget and his signature - I can't say that I saw his signature, I never handled the files, but I accept that Gen Webb had to sign these quarterly budgets that he approved, yes.

MR KAHANOVITZ: The stage at which the Managing Director, Verster, would go to the Chairman, Webb, to obtain final approval of a project to for instance, eliminate someone, would you be handed a document indicating that such final approval had indeed been obtained?

WOUTER J BASSON: No, Chairperson, all presentations were on the project file, as I've explained earlier, with the member's signature and the Regional Manager's signature and the signature of the Managing Director and this file was good enough for me with the Managing Director's signature.  It was not a working method that this file would be given to the Chairperson and that he would sign it.  I had no file with Gen Webb's signature on it but there were signatures of Gen Joubert on some of my external projects.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Now if Mr van Zyl comes to you and he says "Look, these people I've hired to assassinate Adv Omar, they want an advance, so many thousands of rand", could you give him that money before final approval had been obtained from the Chairman for the project?

WOUTER J BASSON: I confirm you're talking about his elimination?

MR KAHANOVITZ: Yes.

WOUTER J BASSON: No, Chairperson, the plan had to be presented by that stage, he has knowledge of that, as I say I assume that Mr Verster conveys it to the Chairman, what I have is Mr Verster's signature authorising the withdrawal of the money.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Just to make sure you understand my question, where you have a situation where the people who are going to carry out the elimination say "Look we want an advance now, the balance on completion of the job."

WOUTER J BASSON: Yes, in other words that would have been explained as such in the presentation and if had been authorised as such, yes.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Were you responsible for attempting to ensure that there was not unreasonable expenditure?  Was that part of your job, to keep control over ...

WOUTER J BASSON: Yes, Chairperson, I was not always - it wasn't always just my responsibility, I'm talking about Region 6 internally, it wasn't always expected of me to determine amounts, that was done on Regional Management level and maybe also in co-operation with the Managing Director they agreed on an amount.  Now I forgot the rest of your question.

MR LAX: Sorry, Mr Kahanovitz.
	You haven't answered the question.

WOUTER J BASSON: Yes, I forgot what the question was.

MR LAX: The question was, were you responsible ...(intervention)

WOUTER J BASSON: Oh, for the control of it?

MR LAX: ... to check and for controlling expenditure?

WOUTER J BASSON: Very well, I'm sorry I ...(intervention)

MR LAX: A simply yes or no would suffice really.

WOUTER J BASSON: I want to explain. Yes, I see that the money is authorised, I withdraw the money physically, I give it to the person concerned and I'm in his presence when he accepts this money and when he gives an account of this money.  If there has been disbursement about R30 000 he would sign it, I hand it in and I'm satisfied.  That's where my control measure stops because I don't have access from Mr van Zyl and lower down, as an example.

MR KAHANOVITZ: In other words if a gangster hired in the Western Cape to kill someone doesn't exactly write out receipts which Mr van Zyl must bring back to you?

WOUTER J BASSON: No.  I want to say that from previous experience it is known that agents refuse to sign for salaries because they think that's a hold we have on them in the future, so they take the money and nobody can say anything about it afterwards.

CHAIRPERSON: But if a portion of the amount involved accommodation costs and travel, would they have to come back after the event with vouchers to prove that that money was actually spent as it was intended to be spent and not just kept in their pockets to use for something else?

WOUTER J BASSON: Chairperson, with regard to plane tickets they had to hand in the proof that was sealed in an envelope and placed on the project file.  But I think in the back of the diary there's reference to ...(intervention)

CHAIRPERSON: I see there's a tariff there for daily allowances.

WOUTER J BASSON: For different areas.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes.

WOUTER J BASSON: Those amounts have been determined by phoning three hotels, so the person gets that amount and he doesn't have to give an account or hand in any receipts.  So we received almost no receipts.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Just for purposes of the record, the witness is referring to page 37 of Exhibit M.
	While we're on that document, obviously South Africa was broken up into various regions for purposes of daily allowances, it also appears though that parts of the world to which a CCB operative might be expected to travel, would have included South West Africa, Swaziland, Lesotho, Botswana, Malawi, West Germany, correct?

WOUTER J BASSON: Correct.

MR KAHANOVITZ: In other words people travel to those places often enough for there to be a set tariff?

WOUTER J BASSON: That's correct.