State Atty. Gen. to Audit L.A. African Trade Unit

The state attorney general’s office is planning to conduct an audit of a Los Angeles city-funded African trade task force run by a business associate of Mayor Tom Bradley to determine whether funds were spent properly, a spokesman said Wednesday.

Alan Ashby, spokesman for Atty. Gen. John K. Van De Kamp, said, however, that his office is awaiting the outcome of the city’s own audit of the Task Force for Africa-Los Angeles Relations. The city controller’s findings “will help us assess whether there is reason for concern or not,” Ashby said.

He added that the mayor himself is “not the subject” of the attorney general’s inquiry.

The task force has been championed by Bradley and run by Juanita St. John, his business associate in a Riverside County real estate investment.

Larry Campbell, registrar for the attorney general’s Registry of Charitable Trusts in Sacramento, said the attorney general’s office in Los Angeles last month requested information about the task force after a series of articles about the group appeared in the Herald-Examiner.

“They may have had more income than they were reporting to us,” Campbell said.

St. John said Wednesday that she has “no problems” with a state audit of her group. “We have nothing to hide,” she said.

The group, set up to promote trade between local businesses and Africa, has received about $400,000 from the city since 1984. The mayor had included funds for the group each year in his budget proposal and had successfully fought a move in the council to delete them.

This year, however, in response to the controversy over his personal financial ties, Bradley withdrew his request to give the group $120,000 in city funds for 1989-90.