Read about how the ANC tried to frame Helen Zille for spying and fraud – just as they are now trying to do to Pravin Gordhan.
Read about what really happens behind the headlines in politics –the intrigue, the conflicts, the shifting allegiances.
Read about a mother’s battle to balance her family and a pressured career in the cauldron of South African politics.
As frank, honest and unflinching as Helen Zille herself, this is a book for anyone interested in the story of South African politics over the past fifty years.
AVAILABLE IN BOOKSTORES AND ONLINE. ALSO AVAILABLE AS E-BOOK. www.penguinrandomhouse.co.za
NOSEWEEK’S REPORTS ON THE growing public outrage at the disposal of toxic leachate into the sea off a Durban beach (noses199, 200,203&204), reminded me of a similar, unpublicised incident 15 years ago involving SA Breweries.
In around1999-2000 I witnessed a meeting between Durban’s thenmayor, Obed Mlaba, and some SA Breweries senior executives, including then- MD Norman Adami and Product Manager Stephen Park. They had arranged for truckloads of beer to be delivered for Mlaba’s daughter’s wedding reception, to which the entire community had been invited to win votes for the ANC. The SAB men asked whether enough beer had been delivered and the mayor gave a drunken thumbs-up.
For the duration of Mlaba’s reign, SAB was allowed to pump their untreated effluent into a nearby river without interference from the council.
It would be interesting to know if the untreated effluent is still leaking into the sea via the river every day, and whether the tradition continues of donating a “truckload” of beer to the mayor to cover up the misdemeanour.
J Zulu JohannesburgMayor from 1996 to 2011, Obed Mlaba featured in the Manase report,
a forensic investigation into corruption and maladministration within eThekwini Metro. The report – which has been rotting on bureaucratic shelves since it was made public in 2013 – connected Mlaba to a multibillion-rand waste-collection tender scam. For his shenanigans, Mlaba was rewarded with a post in the UK as South Africa’s High Commissioner.
Mlaba was a South African Breweries employee from 1987 to 1993, and was still listed as a member of the board of the SA Breweries (Ltd) Trust in a 2015 CV.
See noses34,86,178,179&195 for more on beer-soaked Mlaba. – Ed.
I WAS SADDENED TO READ IN NOSE199 that Tongaat Hulett Ltd had plundered a R585-million surplus from the pension fund behind the pensioners’ backs – so much so that I have addressed the following open letter to the CEO, Steven Saunders, who my husband and I knew well for half a lifetime.
My husband, David Clarkson, joined the Tongaat Sugar Company in 1959, was Chief Accountant and ultimately became Director of Marketing and Investments. For years David argued that the pensioners’ emoluments should include their car allowance, but the then-MD kept refusing.
In 2000 David received a circular
letter from the Fund advising that pensionable emoluments would include the car allowance, following a high court decision. The letter went on to claim that the Group and Trustees had acted in accordance with “good governance” and “the spirit of the rules of the Fund”. This outraged David, because there had in fact been a complete lack of transparency concerning the pension fund.
He made enquiries of certain of his old colleagues and learnt that the new benefit was only applicable to members pensioned since 1996.
The proposal to discriminate between existing and post-1996 pensioners had been judged by the Pension Funds Adjudicator as illegal, but Tongaat Hulett took the matter to the high court and were successful on a legal technicality in getting the Adjudicator’s ruling set aside.
The merits of the case were not addressed by the court.
Clarkson’s letter:
DEAR STEVEN SAUNDERS, In 2001 David Clarkson, my husband, wrote to the Chairman of the Tongaat Hulett Pension Fund to express his astonishment at the unjust action by both the Group and the Trustees that was at odds with the philosophy of a group he had served for 34 years.
He reminded the Trustees that the assets of the Pension Fund were subscribed to by the fund members and the Group, and that employees had always placed their trust in the Trustees to administer their funds in an equitable manner and to resist any attempt to rifle their assets by a rapacious employer.
David added that these views were shared by those who had advised him.
“My concern was occasioned by the complete lack of transparency which has given rise to a lack of faith and a concern as to what other matters may be instituted in the future in a similar secretive fashion,” he wrote.
“Please bear in mind that most employees have to rely on the vigilance and rectitude of Trustees to ensure their final years are funded by their full share of the Pension Fund to
which they contributed during their long hard working careers.” Sadly David died in 2010.
I, David’s widow June Clarkson, had always believed that living in Tongaat for 30 years with my children, we belonged to one large family, sharing each other’s joys and sorrows. I was particularly fortunate to have known and loved all your children.
Today my thoughts are shattered by knowing what Tongaat Hulett Pension Fund has done to all the loyal pensioners who believed they were giving their working years to an honest employer, only to discover that they've been cheated out of Surplus Pension Funds. Shame on you Steven Saunders for letting this happen.
June Clarkson Terrigal, NSW, AustraliaIT IS SURPRISING THAT MANY WERE surprised by Danny Jordaan’s resignation as an “ordinary” councillor of Nelson Mandela Bay. A man with an independent outlook and self-respect would never have accepted being used in an attempt to swing the Coloured vote from the DA to the ANC –which was ultimately his mandate.
The ANC’s greatest independent thinker was Kaizana “Oliver Reginald” Tambo. It seems most ANC leaders today thrive on adulation/ populism and money/status/materialism, and fail to question the basis of their popularity.
As Warren Buffett puts it: “Only when the tide is low, do we see who has been swimming naked.”
Luyanda Kama Port ElizabethEditor Martin Welz editor@noseweek.co.za
Special Correspondent Jack Lundin
Designer Tony Pinchuck Consultant Len Ashton
Sub-editor Fiona Harrison
Contributors
Len Ashton, Sue Barkly, John Clarke, Desiree Erasmus, Jonathan Erasmus, Thorne Godinho, Susan Puren, Harold Strachan, Cartoon Dr Jack, Stacey Stent Accounts
Nicci van Doesburgh accounts@noseweek.co.za
Subscriptions
Maud Petersen subs@noseweek.co.za
Advertising sales executive Godfrey Lancellas godfrey@madhattermedia.co.za Advertising 021 686 0570 ads@noseweek.co.za
All material in this issue is copyright, and belongs to Chaucer Publications (Pty) Ltd, unless otherwise indicated. No part of the material may be quoted, photocopied, reproduced or be stored by any electronic system without prior written permission. Disclaimer: While every reasonable effort is taken to ensure the accuracy and soundness of the contents of this publication, neither the authors nor the publisher will bear any responsibility for the consequences of any actions based on information contained. Printed and Published by Chaucer Publications (Pty) Ltd
By post: Send cheque with name, address and phone no. to: noseweek, PO Box 44538, Claremont 7735. Via Internet (pay by credit card): www.noseweek.co.za Email subs@noseweek.co.za Further information Call (021) 686 0570; fax 021 686 0573 or email info@noseweek.co.za
We are shameless, shameless moonlight sleeping on a midnight lake
NOT THE WORDS OF THE SONG? WELL, that’s how they came up in my mind, sung in Ladysmith Black Mambazo’s resigned, mournful tones, when I read June Clarkson’s letter to Steven Saunders (Letters p4) and this month’s stories about the Mpisanes (p8), Tshwane’s “supply chains” (p26), and RW Johnson’s take on the Zuma era (p30). Add the recent brief news report about the Shoprite CEO’s R25-million annual salary plus R100m bonus, and we’re back to the chorus: “Shameless, shameless…”
Why did Tongaat Hulett pocket the R585m pension fund surplus behind its employees’ backs? Because they could. Why do Shauwn Mpisane and her sister Nosipho Ngubo get state housing contracts worth tens of millions without tendering? Because their mother was a struggle veteran and chair of Ethekwini’s housing committee. Why does Shauwn get away with forgery and fraud? Because the head of the NPA thinks she should. Why is President Zuma protected by a ring of blatantly corrupt provincial leaders? Because he likes it that way. Tshwane’s
corrupt supply chains? That’s how business is done, isn’t it? And Whitey Basson’s fabulous Shoprite pay packet? “He deserves it.” “That’s what executives at that level expect to earn these days.” End of argument. They just don’t get what morals have to do with it.
A 2014 OECD report noted that civil society viewed our government’s ability to successfully prosecute and punish those guilty of corruption “as somewhere between limited and completely non-existent”.
The wrangling over the assent of the new Fica Bill (see p18) speaks to a greater struggle regarding the way in which business, politics and government operate in this country.
The extent of the dishonesty and intrigues surrounding the government’s plan to take over the management of the country’s massive social security payments, and the scale of the potential for catastrophe are only equalled by the absence of any political debate or reporting on the subject. Why? Because social security and the lot of the poor masses aren’t what’s discussed at the dinner tables of the elite.
But some have, quietly, seen the profit to be made from it…
THE FOSSIL FUEL INDUSTRY’S DETERMINATION TO manufacture doubt about global warming illustrates the desperation of the oil, gas and coal producers as the realities of climate change strike home. They have created a network of front organisations which actively engage in lies and misinformation about the realities of climate change. While the campaign is largely driven from within the developed world the global South has also been pulled into this high stakes dirty tricks campaign.
Keith Bryer has been a regular columnist for South Africa’s largest newspaper group, Independent Media, for several years. He is published in the group’s Business Report, a daily business supplement distributed inside each of the group’s regional titles, reaching hundreds of thousands of readers. Strangely, neither Bryer, nor Business Report, are willing to disclose whether he is a paid columnist or just a source of free copy.
Bryer spent decades at the centre of the public relations department for British Petroleum (BP) South Africa. Now retired, he is listed as an associate partner of the major London based international PR company, Etoile Partners, a “geopolitical consultancy” (www.etoilepartners.com) whose clients in-
clude the oil industry and whose remit includes “reputation management”.
Recent revelations by whistleblowers have shown that decades ago the fossil fuel industry already knew more than anybody else about the impact of their products on climate change. (See nose198, “The nuclear lie of the land” .)
As a result, there is a real risk that companies like ExxonMobil can be held liable not just for covering up the known consequences of greenhouse gas emissions, but for lying about these and then embarking on a cynical long-term campaign to undermine any action to reduce fossil fuel use. The industry faces an unprecedented class action, dwarfing the extent of the punishment meted out to the tobacco industry, which already runs into hundreds of billions of dollars.
Exxon has known of these specific risks since the 1970s – from its own research. Yet despite having developed a scientifically sound model, Exxon not only failed to take action but instead rather chose to spend untold millions of dollars both covering up the facts and actively spreading doubt among the public, politicians and legislators.
Dozens of front organisations were cre-
ated to push this agenda. Groups like the Competitive Enterprise Institute, The Heartland Institute and the Cato Institute continue to do so, effectively undermining and stalling meaningful action to address climate change.
The documents released in late 2015 by Inside Climate News and The New Yorker have prompted various US state attorneys, including those of New York, California, Massachusetts and the US Virgin Islands, to start investigations to uncover the fraud and malfeasance. The potential damages pose a threat to the very existence of the industry. The stakes could not be higher.
In order to spread this corporate counter-narrative as widely as possible the fossil fuel industry has exploited the increasingly tightly controlled corporate media conglomerates and the trend toward outsourced news gathering. Most people are unaware that a significant proportion of current news is sourced directly from public relations organisations contracted to multinational corporate interests, while mainstream media outlets simultaneously shrink newsrooms and staff to maximise profitability.
As journalists have declined, the ratio of PR news agency employees to journalists has risen. This media infiltration by vested interests has inevitably skewed the bias, as the flow of public relations masquerading as news
swells to a flood. As liberal media baron Randolph Hearst put it, “News is what someone does not want you to print –the rest is advertising.”
This is where PR specialists such as South Africa’s Bryer enter the picture, having spent years fronting up for the fossil fuel industry. Not only does he snidely dismiss and denigrate the very notion of climate change, terming it “socalled,” and an unproven theory caused by the sun; he insists that those calling for action on emissions are “communists and socialists of every stripe” and “latter-day puritans”. These are welldocumented tactics, widely employed by the Merchants of Doubt.
Reading Bryer’s articles is like juggling a series of contradictions. In one, he claims coal companies are being wrongly held liable for climate change, in another it’s Exxon that’s liable. He cites pundits like the utterly discredited ex-Greenpeace founder Patrick Moore as a reliable source. He claims dealing with climate change will be prohibitively expensive, yet fails to mention the staggering costs and risks of delayed action to manage the emerging impacts of global warming. Bryer unreservedly supports the oil and nuclear industries, excuses Volkswagen’s emissions fraud, undermines solar and wind-generated alternative energy. Naturally he disagrees vehemently with international agreements to deal with climate change. And as a seasoned PR hack, he spins a convincing story to a largely sympathetic audience.
The extent to which Bryer’s discourse closely parallels the identical narratives emerging elsewhere is telling. A recent example neatly demonstrated his role in this corporate echo chamber. In July 2016 he wrote of how ExxonMobil was forced to defend the liberties of free speech as it sought to counter legal investigations into its lies and cover-ups, as discussed.
Exxon has fought back on several fronts. First, it called in its PR media outlets; second, it engaged in the legal battle; and third, it harnessed tame legislators it has a record of funding. The underlying message was the absurd claim that Exxon’s right to free speech was being undermined and that it was the target of a latter-day witchhunt by nefarious green groups.
Bryer’s narrative was essentially a cut-and-paste emanating from Exxon’s
PR pundits in the USA. As far as I can ascertain Bryer has never indicated in any article he has written his link to Etoile, as an associate partner. Remember, their self-proclaimed job is “reputation management” for the oil and gas industry, among others.
I raised these failures of disclosure with the Press Council of South Africa. Despite pointing out the links between Bryer and the fossil fuel industry the Council insisted Bryer was free to express his opinion and that opinion cannot constitutionally be limited, as it is protected under the rights to free speech. Further appeals that provided detailed material links between Bryer and Etoile were likewise dismissed, again citing the protected right to free speech.
This is a remarkable ruling on two accounts. First, the Press Code requires balance and the disclosure of vested interests. It stipulates that no intentional distortion or misrepresentation can be made, nor shall commercial interests be allowed to influence or slant reporting. It also clearly states that conflicts of interest should not undermine the trust of the public in the media.
The fact that a business newspaper failed to disclose these links appears to be a significant moral and ethical lapse of disclosure, notwithstanding the Press Code.
Surely if Bryer’s writings were aboveboard and simply a reflection of his own opinions – not those he was paid to write for his entire professional life – he would disclose his links to Etoile? And surely Business Report would also feel morally obliged to share this information? Neither did so.
Surely neither he nor his publishers ought to be able to naively claim that he is simply a “retired communications consultant” providing his “opinion” – rather than an active player in the field?
On a more sinister note, Bryer’s role appears entirely consistent with that of the Merchants of Doubt, constantly seeking to cast aspersions, sew discord and undermine opposition to its interests. The first rule of propaganda is to repeat a lie, often; by doing so people start to believe it.
Ashton is an environmental researcher, writer and activist.
DURBAN’S
S’bu Mpisane and his spouse Shauwn have made their fortune on the back of state housing contracts totalling more than R1 billion, often awarded without any tender processes (see noses100; 109;125;150,195,204).
Shauwn is the director of Zikhulise Cleaning Maintenance and Transport CC, the couple’s vehicle for state construction contracts. Between 2011 and 2013, she and Zikhulise faced 183 separate charges of fraud, corruption, forgery and defeating the ends of justice across three separate courts in Durban. But the Mpisanes are not rated leading members of Durban’s ignominious Teflon Club for nothing (see nose203).
The alleged incompetence of the prosecution, helped by some political manipulation, prompted SARS and the NPA to do some frantic back-pedalling and back-room bargaining. The outcome: Shauwn and her company were acquitted on some charges, while most were quietly dropped.
From the recent findings of a an internal inquiry held by the NPA, however, it appears that the Mpisanes’ defence lawyers, SARS and the NPA, collaborated in a scheme to discredit and destroy the career of the prosecutor in the case, Advocate Meera Naidu as a means to get the Mpisanes off the hook. She ended up at a back desk with a pencil and no phone for two years, before the NPA’s own in-
ternal disciplinary hearing eventually cleared her of any wrongdoing.
The evidence Noseweek has seen suggests that various serious crimi nal charges related to the Mpisane investigation which should have been prosecuted were simply abandoned without any evidence having been led. (Read associated story: “Claims against Naidu ‘spurious’”.) It appears that the evidence, which was volumi nous, with over 20 witnesses lining up for the State, never even came into the equation when Shauwn was given a free pass.
Last month a senior SARS executive, Jonas Makwakwa, Group Executive: Auditing Division, was suspended on suspicion of having taken cash bribes, coincidently during the period when Shauwn somehow got the impression that she had successfully negotiated with Makwakwa a massive reduction of the R33m penalty she owed SARS (see nose204).
That bit of confusion contributed to the criminal cases against her being dropped in January 2014. In the bigger scheme of things, the R200,000 bail she had paid was such small change that she only bothered to collect the refund in April this year.
In the June 2011 case in the Durban Magistrate’s Court, Shauwn Mpisane faced 119 criminal charges, most of them involving forged VAT invoices submitted to SARS, and the underdeclaration of VAT.
A year later, Shauwn was re-arrest-
weighed in, blaming Naidu for mismanaging the case.
Shauwn’s access to state contracts was because her late mother Florence Mkhize was an ANC struggle veteran – and chair of Durban’s powerful housing committee. (Earlier this year Shauwn’s sister, Nosipho Ngubo, also landed a cushy R20m housing contract from eThekwini – also without tendering.)
S’bu Mpisane’s climb up the ladder of success is less happily explained. He is not a director of the company but is fully involved in its affairs, and shares in the spoils.
According to various reports in 1998, S’bu, then an ordinary constable in the metro police, took part in a hit on a judge, the prosecutor and a witnesses involved in the murder trial of taxi boss (and nephew of President Jacob Zuma) Mandla Gcaba. Three people including a policeman were
peared and Gcaba’s murder trial col lapsed.
A year later S’bu reappeared claim ing he had been kidnapped and held hostage on some unknown African island. (We got no answer when we asked which island.) Without further ado, he got his job back and was promoted to sergeant.
The Mpisanes’ tax problems started in mid-2008, when SARS recommended a lifestyle audit on S’bu, who, as a low-ranking policeman was arriving at work in a Lamborghini, making him rather conspicuous in the crowd. But his wife was earning the money, so the investigation shifted. (He has since resigned from the police.)
Based on that lifestyle audit, Durban-based SARS auditor Waheeda Osman (she later became a key witness in the State’s case) issued her
the help of their new tax consultant, Trevor Dalton (nose201), to sort out their 2008 tax audit. This process is meant to be informal, to avoid litigation and work towards a settlement –provided there is no tax evasion, fraud or serious non-compliance with the tax laws.
As is required, SARS asked for documents to validate claimed cash purchases and cash wages in the disputed 2008 financial year. The documents provided by Zikhulise’s tax consultant were sent to senior SARS officials including Poobanthiran Govender (who investigated Zikhulise’s PAYE) and Osman. Govender plays no further role in this story as he was murdered alongside his girlfriend in Sandton a month before Shauwn was formally
The couple were shot 16 times, and their bodies found only three days later. Their relatives still don’t know why they were killed
What’s cooking with S’bu and Shauwn Mpisane?
charged. The couple were shot 16 times, and their bodies found only three days later. Their relatives still don’t know why they were killed and have only a vague theory involving the Nigerian underworld.
Alternative Dispute Resolution official Solomon Mthembu had been tasked with dealing with the Zikhulise dispute. He would later claim that a tax consultant acting for the Mpisanes, Myesh Pillay, tried to bribe him. (Read accompanying story: “Jimmy’s killer prawn bribe trap”.)
In June 2010 Dalton, and the Mpisanes met ADR manager Dierdre Pieterse (since resigned), along with other officials and presented them with invoices that, it later transpired, were forged.
Pieterse told Dalton in an email the invoices given to them made no sense.
“[The auditors] have found that invoice serial numbers on the relevant VAT invoices have only been used by the supplier this year. It… needs to be explained by your client how the relevant invoices, dated 2007, could have been issued by the supplier. Very little of those invoices [supplied to us on 4 June] may be allowed by SARS”.
Dalton, after leaving Zikhulise’s employment, gave three statements to investigators. He told Naidu that Shauwn and her accountant Kishal Reddy (who would later turn State witness) “denied fabricating any invoices”.
On another occasion Dalton told SARS investigator Martin van der Merwe that neither Reddy nor Shauwn had a “straight answer” for the same forged invoices.
There was also the strange claim by Shauwn to Dalton that a SARS official called “Mark” tried to solicit a R4m bribe to “assist her with her tax issues”. She met “Mark” at the Beverley Hills Hotel, Umhlanga on 31 August 2010. SARS eventually obtained the video footage from the hotel but they didn’t have the software to open it. “Mark” had also sent an SMS to Shauwn which said he could “resolve her appeal” for the sum of “R500,000 for each of the eight members of the “committee”, who would adjudicate her situation.
While SARS claimed they couldn’t investigate the matter, Shauwn told Dalton that “Mark’s” phone was traced, allegedly by SARS, to “an ad-
dress of a tax-services company that was based next to the SARS head office in Brooklyn (Pretoria)”. Nothing came of this matter.
The ADR process was terminated on 25 August 2010. An investigation followed on the orders of former SARS anti-corruption and security head, Clifford Collings – later to be among the victims of the “rogue unit” scandal (nose190) – who allocated the case to Van der Merwe, who in turn was joined by the SAPS Serious Economic Offences Unit’s Johan Prinsloo.
Shauwn’s legal team was made up of well-known criminal law advocate Jimmy Howse, Wim Trengrove SC and Rafik Bhana SC.
In this story, family connections count. Bhana is related to liquidator Enver Motala (See noses113;126;127; 128;147) as well as Fazel and Solly Bhana, who were involved in the looting of Aurora Mine, Grootvlei, along with Motala, Khulubuse Zuma (President Zuma’s nephew), Zondwa Mandela (Nelson Mandela’s nephew) and President Zuma’s wheeler-dealer lawyer Michael Hulley.
Rafik Bhana also has an exceptional talent for claiming enormous fees for non-stop reading of clients’ documents (nose140).
The trial commenced in mid-2013 when SARS auditor Osman took the stand. On July 10 that year Shauwn’s counsel sent a submission to then act-
ing NDPP, Adv Nomgcobo Jiba, (since struck from the Roll of Advocates), complaining about Naidu’s conduct in court and her apparent “coaching” of Osman.
Jiba in turn sent the 52-page submission to the complainant – SARS.
The submission to the NDPP, written by Bhana (of Shauwn’s legal team), said that irregularities in the trial “exposed misconduct” which was “so serious” that it demanded their “immediate attention”. Naidu’s conduct, he said, amounted to a “miscarriage of justice”.
He also accused Van der Merwe of using “illegal investigative methods”. Most particularly he claimed the State had failed to furnish the defence with an audit report on Zikhulise that was undertaken by (now former) SARS accountant Sumantha Ramharak which, he said, might have assisted the Defence.
The Ramharak audit report into Zikhulise’s 2008 tax year, was completed in 2010 on instructions from Makwakwa. He had issued the instructions at Shauwn’s request, after she told him she had “new information” about her 2008 financials. This “new information” was hand-delivered to Durban-based Ramharak by Shauwn’s personal driver. She was in constant telephonic contact with Ramharak at the time. At one stage, it is alleged, they had lunch together at a Nando’s and went joyriding in the Mpisane’s Lamborghini through the leafy streets of Umhlanga.
Ramharak’s actions would later see Van der Merwe suggest she was “compromised”. Van der Merwe said some of the “new” invoices given to Ramharak were also fraudulent. Ramharak admitted to Van der Merwe, advocate Etienne Coetzee, SARS’s legal advisor Helen Templeton and Prinsloo (of SAPS’s Economic Offences unit) at a private meeting that the “audit verification report was flawed in various respects”. She blamed the poor quality of the report on the fact that she was “very new at SARS”.
The defence claimed in its submission that the Ramharak report showed Mpisane had paid her tax and not evaded it. They said the tax paid on the genuine invoices of approximately R10m was higher than the tax owed on the (admittedly) fraudulent invoic-
There was also the strange claim by Shauwn to Dalton that a SARS official called ‘Mark’ tried to solicit a R4m bribe to ‘assist her with her tax issues’
SARS ALTERNATIVE DISPUTES
Resolution official Solomon Mthembu, tasked with handling the tax dispute involving Shauwn Mpisane and Zikhulise Cleaning Maintenance and Transport CC, declared in a written statement that Shauwn’s tax consultant Myesh Pillay had attempted to set him up with a bribe.
Pillay is COO of the LSP Group in Durban which offers tax advisory services. She was previously a senior manager at SARS. Her boss is Lazarus Pillay (not related), a pastor described by the Chatsworth Rising Sun newspaper in March 2015 as having a “close relationship” with former finance minister Nhlanhla Nene.
In a signed statement, Mthembu said he had known Pillay for three years, having met her when she acted as tax consultant for Balele Leisure Pty (Ltd), owned by Durban casino and development tycoon Vivian Reddy, a well-known fawner and funder of President Jacob Zuma.
In a written statement, Mthembu relates how, on 14 May 2010, in the midst of the dispute resolution proceedings with the Mpisanes, he was telephoned by Pillay, who asked him to meet her at the Shell garage on Dey Street in Pretoria.
Moments before they were to meet at 2.30pm, Pillay called him to say she could not make the meeting as she had another meeting “around Menlyn with lawyers”. She told him she had also been scheduled to meet another person at the Shell garage, and asked if, as a favour, he would collect a parcel of documents from that person and keep the parcel for her to collect later from his office. He was to collect docu-
es totalling R5,056,035, and therefore no crime was committed.
While not denying the existence of fake invoices – which the Defence maintained was the work of rogue Zikhulise accountant Reddy – they argued that SARS was not robbed of taxes.
“[SARS accountant] Ramharak conducted a verification process on the
ments from a person in a blue Toyota Conquest.
On arrival he found the car parked at the corner of Middle and Dey Street, in the parking lot of Jimmy’s Killer Prawns. “At this time I felt awkward, but I trusted Pillay,” he said.
There, an unidentified Indian male handed him a parcel wrapped in “A4 writing pad paper” saying he was “giving me cash for Pillay instead of documents”.
“I phoned Pillay and informed her that the occupant of the car wanted to give me money instead of documents. [She] said the occupant owed her money and that I should collect the money on her behalf and she will collect the same from me on Wednesday 19 May 2010. I informed her that I was not prepared to take the money on her behalf,” said Mthembu.
A short while later, back at the SARS office, he told his boss Jonas Makwakwa that he suspected the incident was connected to the Zikhulise case – the only high profile case under his control.
“[Makwakwa] mentioned that he would not be surprised if it is indeed the case, since the people involved were of the kind that one could expect such behaviour from. Makwakwa also mentioned that he knows Pillay and did not seem surprised by the fact that she was apparently involved,” said Mthembu.
Mthembu was removed from the case and instead a team was put in place to oversee the matter “so as to protect the identity of the individuals”.
Another tax consultant hired by Zikhulise – KZN-based Trevor Dalton
genuine invoices to assess the impact on the tax claims based on the fictitious invoices… and confirmed the genuinness of the invoices and that they reflected purchases in a higher amount than the fictitious invoices. In consequence the benefit to Zikhulise based on the genuine invoices was greater than the tax benefit based on the fictitious invoices. “Stated differ-
– had similar suspicions about Pillay. He confirmed that Pillay worked for Shauwn Mpisane.
In a sworn affidavit, Dalton maintained that he only spoke to Pillay once in early August 2010, days before SARS abandoned the ADR process. He said Shauwn had handed him a phone to continue a conversation where Pillay told him she had “worked out an effective game plan to, in principle, mitigate, if not eliminate, the basis for the SARS assessment”.
“I simply listened as I was astounded that Myesh [Pillay] had gathered so much detailed information so quickly”. Pillay told Dalton she had spoken to senior SARS officials including “the Commissioner”, then Oupa Magashula.
“Subsequent to the conversation I advised Shauwn that I had no desire to interact with Pillay as I instinctively sensed that our characters and working styles were not compatible. Shauwn informed me that it had been her friend, Bheki Cele, (then National Police Commissioner), who had put Shauwn in contact with Myesh”.
Asked by Noseweek for comment, Pillay denied ever having worked for Shauwn . “No, no, no. We didn’t do any work for the Mpisanes. In fact we were given an instruction not to allow them into our office. I also have no interaction with Bheki Cele,”said Pillay. She maintained she and Mthembu were still friends.
Not according to Mthembu’s statement, where he declares: “I was shocked by the fact that a person I had known on a professional level for about three years could be involved in an attempt to set me up”. n
ently, SARS was not prejudiced and the accused were not advantaged by the claim based on the fictitious invoices.”
“Osman’s evidence… proves that SARS and the state were up to no good during this investigation and the motive was to charge [Shauwn] at any cost,” said Bhana SC.
Bhana said he believed that “Naidu’s
conduct was in flagrant disregard of several provisions of the Prosecution Policy and Code of Conduct”, and that Shauwn’s rights to a fair trial had been “seriously compromised” by Naidu.
Bhana said that before they made the submission, they had met with SARS counsel Adv Mike Helens and that “obviously SARS is concerned”.
Shortly after the trial’s postponement, then-SARS boss Ivan Pillay (who was known in tax circles for “settlement deals” for the rich (see nose69), moved the Mpisane tax file to Pieter Engelbrecht, the deputy of Johann van Loggerenberg (see noses 190,191).
Also worth mentioning: SARS deputy commissioner Raymond Lalla (nose195) deemed the matter so important that he visited the Durban court on one of the trial days and spoke to both Naidu and Osman. Osman complained to him about her treatment on the stand by Bhana. Lalla assured her “it will all be sorted out”. (It wasn’t and she has since reported Bhana to the Johannesburg Bar.)
On August 30, 2013 SARS replied to the NPA on the basis of Bhana’s submission with their own 40-page document. Drafted by former SARS head of tax and customs investigations, Gene Ravele, and sent to Jiba, KZN Directorate for Prosecutions Adv Moipone Noko, and national Specialised Commercial Crime Unit director Lawrence Mrwebi (also, since struck from the advocate’s roll), Ravele agreed that the “trial has been rendered unfair”, that “justice will best be served to stop the prosecution (sic)” and “there is no hope of a successful prosecution”.
Ravele, also embroiled in the “rogue unit” scandal at SARS which cost him his job, based his finding almost entirely on the Defence submission.
In his rationale for ditching the case, he refers to “strained debate” between Naidu and Judge Blessing Msane; Naidu had “lashed out at the Defence” and Judge Msane had “reprimanded” the prosecutor. He said Naidu – a prosecutor with 22 years’ experience and a specialist in tax matters for 13 years – was “not sufficiently competent” and lacked integrity.
Ravele said SARS “cannot in good conscience associate itself with the continuation of the current trial”.
This was in contrast to an affidavit
ADV MEERA NAIDU’S DISCIPLINARY started two years after she had been withdrawn from the case. After a lengthy hearing she was cleared of all charges including failing to disclose the famed Ramharak report to the defence and coaching of her lead witness Waheeda Osman.
Represented by Durban lawyer Bruce Macgregor who was seconded by the Public Servants Association, Naidu also made the extraordinary claim that communications between SARS, the NPA and the SAPS were being monitored.
She had reason to believe that decisions from private meetings were somehow being leaked to the Defence.
Chairman of the disciplinary hearing, Advocate Justice Mnisi, called the hearing “very strange” and suspected that the charges had been formulated on the trot and were baseless.
“I have little hesitation in rejecting the allegations in the charge sheet as entirely unsubstantiated and spurious. To find the employee guilty of the above-mentioned charges in the light of oral and documentary evidence tabled before me, will be a guarantee that the employer will be found very wanting in any other forum.
“My finding in regard to these charges is that the employee is not guilty of all these charges. To find anything to the contrary would be a travesty of justice,” said Adv Mnisi.
Who else was charged?
Shauwn’s former accountant Kishal Reddy pleaded guilty to forgery and was handed a suspended sentence and a R30,000 fine, while turning State witness. He claimed that on Shauwn’s instruction he fabricated the invoices. There was no evidence produced of his having had any financial gain from the forgery.
drafted by Van der Merwe, who said he was “personally of the view that the State docket made out a strong case against Zikhulise and Mpisane”.
Ravele said SARS would instead collect their dues from Shauwn and Zikhulise through the civil tax collec-
Others charged but not prosecuted after the State’s case collapsed, included Durban-based project consultant DGW Consulting owner Dave Williamson, who was double dipping: he was “consulting” for Zikhulise, at approximately R145,000 a month, while in full-time employment with the eThekwini Metro’s Housing Unit from 2005 to 2010, earning a salary of about R47,000 a month.
Williamson approved and signed off payments on behalf of the city to Zikhulise for the period March 2007 to February 2008. An investigation found DGW Consulting was nothing but a shell and that it was impossible for Williamson, who claimed to work nine hours a day for the city, to be working simultaneously for Zikhulise.
Further evidence was obtained where Zikhulise issued a cheque dated 5 October 2007 to the value of R539,240 to Fordsdicks Motors for the purchase of a BMW X5, registered in the name of DG Williamson.
Docket four was for Lorna Williamson, Dave’s wife. She was the sole member of another company called Lezmin 1257 CC. An investigation revealed that Lorna failed to declare income of R3.3m for the 2008 tax year. This was the value of a property acquired by her, in one of Hillcrest’s exclusive estates, Le Domaine, and paid for with cheques issued by Zikhulise and Ukhozi Construction –both owned by the Mpisanes.
The fifth and final docket was for Preshan Ramdutt. He was accused of forging the invoices at his printing shop that purported to have been issued to Zikhulise by DGW Consulting, Eveready Brick and Block, Nelson Allopi and Associates, Tiger Plant Hire, NAC Inc and Afrisam. n
tion process, claiming these negotiations were “substantially advanced”.
Naidu was removed from the case on 2 September 2013, to be replaced by a veritable squad: NPA Advocate Arno J Rossouw, Advocate Jan Ferreira, Advocate Paul Louw (see noses56;58;60;89
for more about him) and State prosecutor Adv David Broughton.
On 31 January 2014, making his first major – and possibly only decision as NDPP – Nxasana withdrew the charges in Pinetown and acquitted Shauwn and Zikhulise in the Durban Regional Court matter on the basis of Naidu’s “incompetent” prosecution.
“My responsibility is to ensure that all cases are prosecuted without fear, favour and prejudice. [We] will be working very hard to ensure that there is no reoccurrence of incidents similar to the one that has led to this decision,” said Nxasana.
A special tax court was then held at the five-star The Square Boutique Hotel in Umhlanga, where a final secret settlement was reached between SARS and the Mpisanes.
Just 15 days before Nxasana made his decision public, Shauwn Mpisane’s Durban Commercial Court matter
was also withdrawn.
Asked whether the NPA would review the acquittal, Noko told Noseweek “the accused may legally never be charged again with the same charges”.
And asked whether Nxasana had erred in agreeing to Shauwn’s acquittal, she said: “No comment”.
When the Mpisanes’ tax problems began in 2008 their known assets totalled R68m. This included R30m in motor vehicles, six properties valued at R32m, and R5m in household goods and jewellery.
They had no serious creditors – just a R4m overdraft with Standard Bank.
The Mpisanes have since branched out into new fields of business; including national first division football club Royal Eagles and security firm Inyanga Protection Services.
Attempts to get comment from the Mpisanes were unsuccessful despite emails, calls made and SMSes sent. n
“What is it, Lassie – is Timmy in trouble?”
VASTLY DIFFERENT COMMUNITIES IN the Hillcrest/Shongweni area of KwaZulu-Natal have pledged solidarity in their drive to close down a toxic dump owned and operated by EnviroServ, one of the country’s self-proclaimed leaders in hazardous waste disposal
The inland communities of Hillcrest, Dassenhoek, Shongweni, KwaNdengezi and surrounds, as well as people living in south Durban about 30km away, believe EnviroServ is mishandling toxic waste at the site to fatten its bottom line at the expense of community health. Since April, residents have complained of suffering nosebleeds, nausea, vomiting, sinusitis, bronchitis, asthma and other health-related issues. Those from the adjacent, mostly poor, rural areas of Shongweni, Das-
senhoek, KwaNdengezi and surrounds say they have been experiencing the same or similar symptoms for up to 15 years.
Their complaints have been lodged with the eThekwini authorities and the Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA) after residents asked renowned activist Desmond D’Sa for assistance. D’Sa has since been mobilising the affected communities to assert their Constitutional rights and fight for their health. In the process he has become a thorn in the side of EnviroServ, as well as local and national authorities.
The plight of the residents has been well documented by Noseweek (noses 199;200;203;204).
After months of denying any responsibility, EnviroServ eventually accepted partial blame for the odours in the area. Sustained pressure from the community, activists, Noseweek and other media prompted the company to hire a second independent specialist to work alongside its long-standing specialist, GeoZone Environmental, to look into the noxious smells. Residents have said publicly they do not trust GeoZone’s methodology and results.
Activist and scientist, Rico Euripidou (see accompanying story) has previously called GeoZone’s initial air quality results “junk science”.
EnviroServ CEO Dean Thompson said the “gaseous emissions” coming from the stored leachate at the landfill were a “contributor to the malodours” in the area. Leachate is the liquid that drains from a waste site; it generally contains elevated concentrations of undesirable material from the waste.
EnviroServ, has vehemently denied any culpability for residents’ health
issues.
In August, the DEA received over 300 complaints in one week from residents of Hillcrest/Shongweni and surrounds, prompting it to formulate an agreed-upon, deadline-driven 11-point plan with EnviroServ. Some of those deadlines have since been extended by mutual agreement. The company says it is working flat-out to meet the targets and has made “good progress”.
“We remain on track to meet our 11-point action plan as agreed with the DEA,” Thompson said in a press release.
“A scientific report by a specialist appointed by the community previously revealed that EnviroServ was not the sole source of the malodour as there are a number of other industries operating in the same area.
“Despite having existing air quality monitoring in place, EnviroServ will soon instal real-time air-quality monitors, which will allow the company to determine air quality immediately and as well as help identify other odour sources.
“The DEA has committed to investigate other potential contributors to the problem,” said Thompson.
Included in the 11 points was the “decanting and disposal off-site of all stored leachate and contaminated stormwater through the approved permit processes within ten weeks”.
(The Green Scorpions have since launched a criminal investigation into the landfill, which includes other industries in the area, while administrative enforcement is also underway. Should EnviroServ not comply with the administrative notices, they will have to endure a second criminal investigation for non-compliance.)
South Durban residents were thrown into the mix when it was learned that the DEA’s Deputy Director-General for chemicals and waste management, Mark Gordon, had authorised eThekwini’s senior manager at its pollution unit, Chris Fennemore, to grant a temporary permit to EnviroServ to dispose of the stored leachate and contaminated stormwater through the city’s Southern Wastewater Treatment Works. About 27 million litres of leachate and contaminated stormwater was to be pumped 4km out to sea, 60m below surface off the popular south Durban fishing spot, Cuttings Beach, in Merebank. This is a predominantly Indian and coloured area and one of the most polluted parts of Durban. A large portion of the population is made up of subsistence fishermen.
The Merebank community demanded that the waste-to-sea agreement, which was to run from September to November, be terminated immediately. Fennemore refused the request, claiming there was a “signed agreement” with a stamp of approval from the DEA, which legally allowed EnviroServ to dump its leachate into the ocean after being treated with hydrogen peroxide.
Residents and D’Sa have told
Noseweek they believe the municipality’s Fennemore has been set up as a “fall guy” so that those who have “real authority”, like the DEA’s Gordon, are absolved of responsibility for their “incompetence”.
Fennemore denied this. But at a later meeting (at which Fennemore and Gordon were not present) another
arm of the DEA, the Oceans and Coast Unit, told Merebank residents it had annulled the temporary permit, claiming it was illegal, thus stopping EnviroServ from pumping the leachate to sea. Gordon had initially confirmed he would attend the meeting but pulled out just hours beforehand “due to other urgent matters”.
“With regards to the existing leachate, we have advised the municipality to stop taking any more leachate from the Shongweni landfill, and we are waiting for feedback from the municipality that it has been stopped,” Natasha Pillay of the Oceans and Coast Unit told the meeting.
She said eThekwini was within its authority to issue permits according to local bylaws, but that the final effluent must meet the requirements of the licence issued by national government overseeing the marine environment.
EnviroServ and eThekwini Municipality have both stated that EnviroServ voluntarily stopped tankering leachate to the treatment works.
“No formal directive has been received by the City from [DEA] to cease the acceptance of leachate from Shongweni landfill,” said eThekwini’s communications head, Tozi Mthethwa, adding: “However, EnviroServ voluntarily stopped tankering leachate to the Southern Wastewater Treatment Works on 21 September 2016.”
EnviroServ CEO Thompson said: “EnviroServ, by its own accord, has temporarily suspended tankering of effluent to Southern Wastewater Treatment Works until such time as we are able to be assured of a consistency in standards.
“We informed eThekwini Water and Sanitation of our decision on 21 September 2016 after noting inconsistencies in samples. EnviroServ is still in possession of a valid discharge permit as issued by eThekwini Water and Sanitation,” said Thompson.
Added to all of this is the municipality’s poor fines and penalty regime. EnviroServ received five R1,000 administrative fines between 2013 and this year for bylaw transgressions related to effluent disposal. Before each fine is issued, three warnings are given.
The Green Scorpions have also begun an investigation into the South-
ern Wastewater Treatment Works.
Residents from Hillcrest and south Durban have speculated publicly that the lack of action by the authorities to deal effectively with an issue that affects the health and wellbeing of communities over a 30km stretch is the result of political stonewalling. They have accused eThekwini’s political elite and Environment minister Edna Molewa of having buckled under political pressure because deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa’s brother Douglas was appointed to the EnviroServ board in April as a non-executive director.
The Green Scorpions’ Marie-Louise Lume denied any political interference in their investigation – whether related to Ramaphosa or any other political figure or party – at the last
Merebank meeting.
D’Sa has written to eThekwini’s mayor, Zandile Gumede, and Environmental Affairs minister Edna Molewa, detailing the plight of the communities. He had received no reply from either at the time of going to print.
Community members complain that while all of this has been playing out, EnviroServ has been using “bullying” and “intimidation tactics”. In September, Thompson threatened D’Sa and Hillcrest resident and monitoring committee member Lauren Johnson with legal action due to negative publicity, loss of revenue, and for being part of an “orchestrated public campaign directed at coercing the DEA and other authorities into precipitous action without all the necessary and relevant information being gathered”.
D’Sa and Johnson were collecting affidavits from the affected communities when they received Thompson’s letter. To date, over 500 affidavits have been submitted to the Green Scorpions. Noseweek was told that testimonies from five local doctors are among the submissions.
In a leaflet handed out at one of the Merebank meetings – which EnviroServ did not attend – Thompson said: “At our last external audit by the DEA in May, the Shongweni landfill achieved an excellent result of 99.2%, which is only a minor non-compliance.”
But the DEA’s Grant Walters told the meeting that the department had not conducted an audit on the company in May. Asked to clarify, Thompson told Noseweek, through his PR company, “The audit earlier this year was
THE 11-POINT PLAN AGREED UPON between the DEA and EnviroServ, specified that the company had to “immediately provide a detailed inventory of all waste accepted at the site over the past eight months including volume, tonnage, toxicity, flammability and chemical composition”. EnviroServ has refused to provide this inventory to monitoring committee members, affected residents, activists, Noseweek and other media. The inventory has been submitted to the DEA, which also refuse to release it.
After being pressed as to why EnviroServ wanted to keep the inventory secret, Thompson (through Enviro-Serv’s PR company) stated: “The inventory submissions to the DEA were intended for the authorities to evaluate what EnviroServ was accepting and its potential contribution to odours. This information is competitor-sensitive and as such, not for general distribution.”
Rico Euripidou of environmental justice group, groundWork, told Noseweek that the company’s waste manifesto for the Shongweni landfill from May 2015 to April 2016 (a copy
of which is in Noseweek’s possession), documented that the site had accepted waste that could contribute to or cause the malodours being experienced in the area.
The manifest lists quantities of waste such as inorganic liquid and sludge, waste oils, liquid and solid waste containing mercury, tarry and bituminous waste, sulphur containing waste, chemical and refractory waste and persistent organic pollutants (POP waste).
“That listing in itself doesn’t tell you much. The way it has been listed doesn’t give you a good enough clue about what is inside it and whether or not it can cause a smell. When it comes to things like waste oils, what waste oils are they?”
He said that the manifest should have listed all of the landfill’s incoming waste streams for odour potential.
POP waste (for example obsolete stockpiles of pesticides) should never be accepted at landfills, he said.
“It’s a no-brainer. POP waste has the potential to harm the environment and cause cancer. In March 2016, the Shongweni landfill accepted 59 tonnes of POP waste.”
It is important to know what the POP waste was made up of and where it came from, he said.
“Mercury waste should not be dumped into a landfill site. Mercury is an element, it is neither created nor destroyed, it is always there; it gets transformed. If it is pumped out to sea, it comes back to you in your shellfish. You can’t treat anything contaminated with mercury or lead with hydrogen peroxide and expect that it will go away. It doesn’t”.
D’Sa and community members have questioned whether the Shongweni landfill receives toxic waste from other countries.
“Absolutely no waste is accepted at Shongweni which originates from outside South Africa’s borders,” said Thompson. “The import of all waste into South Africa is subject to compliance with the requirements of the Basel Convention. About 0.1% of EnviroServ’s total waste is accepted from the SADC countries and this hazardous waste is disposed of at Holfontein in compliance with the site waste management licence requirements and in line with the applicable Basel permit. No waste is received via sea.” n
an independent external compliance and environmental audit, done by Dr Dave Baldwin. “This audit is a requirement of our waste management licence issued by the DEA. En-Chem Consultants conducted the first audit of the fully-operational Shongweni leachate treatment plant, which included a site visit. Of the 67 auditable conditions only one was considered by the auditor to be only in partial compliance. None were found to be non-compliant. This resulted in the leachate treatment plant being rated 99.2% compliant with requirements of the Shongweni Storage, Recovery and Treatment (SRT) Licence.
“The most recent independent external landfill audit was conducted by En-Chem in September 2015 and that audit score was 99.1%.”
Residents from Hillcrest, Shongweni and surrounds have posted on social media that the smell and their illnesses have not abated since April. Residents told Noseweek the smell had in fact worsened, as had the adverse health conditions being experienced.
EnviroServ did not respond when asked if it felt the DEA and residents were unfairly targeting the company.
While initially willing to answer Noseweek’s questions, since 9 September the DEA has said it would no longer be providing comment while investigations are under way.
Minister Molewa accused Noseweek of using “ambush tactics” when contacted.
Gordon continues to be as elusive as the Scarlet Pimpernel. n
WHILE ENVIROSERV CLAIMS “OPEN and transparent” communication with its stakeholders, it has been consistently slapped down by residents and activists at public meetings for lying, deception and being unwilling to make critical information available.
Residents have also accused EnviroServ of skewing information by utilising long-time contractors who “do its bidding” in order to achieve results that favour the company. EnviroServ has denied this, but admits that some of its contractors have been working with the company for up to 20 years.
EnviroServ representatives also did not attend any of the Merebank meetings. Instead, at the 15 September meeting, copies of a letter on an EnviroServ letterhead, signed by CEO Dean Thompson, were distributed by what appeared to be someone plucked off the street.
In the letter, he claimed there were “literally hundreds” of industries using the treatment works to dispose of effluent, and that Shongweni’s landfill effluent “is just a small fraction of this”. The effluent had to meet “meticulous standards” set by the eThekwini municipality before disposal.
The company told Noseweek it did not attend the meetings because EnviroServ held its own “regular” monitoring committee meetings and members of the public were welcome to “apply to become members”.
At a fiery 1 September meeting, The DEA’s Mark Gordon said that all Monitoring Committee meetings were to be open to residents, the media and other interested and affected parties. A monitoring committee is a legal requirement.
The agreed 11-point plan required the submission of “a detailed and inclusive stakeholder engagement plan for the coordination and management of communication to all of the affected
community and other stakeholders”.
But at the MC meeting on 29 September, the last before Noseweek went to print, residents accused EnviroServ and their long-standing consultant Pravin Amar Singh of again trying to silence the community – as they had for the 1 September meeting – by sending invititaions and updates to select people or deliberately giving short notice of meetings.
Some monitoring committee members, including Lauren Johnson, were not alerted to the meeting; and some had not received the minutes of the previous meeting. (Noseweek was not invited despite being on Singh’s mailing list and despite having been in regular contact with their PR firm.
Noseweek was sent a recording of the meeting – at which Singh said there might have been a problem with his emails. He said he also knew most of the residents were on social media groups and assumed they would find out about the meeting that way.
Johnson asked him why it had not been minuted that at the 1 September meeting, residents from Dassenhoek and KwaNdengezi said effluent from the landfill had flowed to streams in their areas and caused the death of livestock, or that a woman from Shongweni Clinic said that people in the area were dying, or that a fouryear-old child in Assagay had died of an asthma attack, or that Mark Gordon had replied “No” when he was asked if EnviroServ was compliant.
Singh said those points would be noted in the next minutes and asked those present to approve the current set. They refused.
“Today’s minutes must record that there are dissenting voices, that a number of people have been left out of being invited to today’s meeting. We are not willing to pass the minutes now in this inaccurate form,” said D’Sa. n
FOR MONTHS, SOUTH AFRICANS HAVE watched the standoff between the Treasury and the Presidency unfold, with much of the public’s focus on Minister Pravin Gordhan’s longevity in Cabinet. This has more broadly resulted in a crisis in government – one which has slowed its attempts to pass more comprehensive legislation to tackle financial crime and the financing of terrorism.
The Financial Intelligence Centre Amendment bill, intended to update South Africa’s anti-corruption and anti-money-laundering laws, was passed by both the National Assembly and the National Council of Provinces in May, but has still not been signed into law by President Jacob Zuma.
This is despite concerns that South Africa’s current legislation may not meet obligations set by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) – a multinational anti-money-laundering body of which South Africa is a member – and that terrorist groups may be accessing funds and recruiting members in South Africa.
In addition to this, in March 2014 the bribery working group of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) raised concerns over the limited investigation and prosecution of foreign bribery in South Africa.
The widely anticipated pushback from the financial services industry, which would face increased obligations and regulation (and therefore extra costs and potentially lost business opportunities) did not materialise. Despite initial reservations, the Banking Association of South Africa (BASA) has
in fact urged Zuma to sign the Fica bill into law.
The loudest voices in the opposition to this increased legislation have come from former government apparatchik Jimmy Manyi’s Progressive Professionals Forum.
In September, the ANC Youth League joined the chorus opposing the Fica bill, declaring that it was, “perpetuated by Monopoly White Capital”, and was an attempt by the government to “abdicate” its responsibility to fight financial crime. For industry insiders and political commentators alike these protestations – likely fuelled by self-interest – seem bizarre, especially in the light of growing international consensus over the safeguarding of financial systems and of increasing transparency and accountability in these systems.
Much like the broader standoff between Gordhan and Zuma, the Presidency’s slow response to the new Fica bill highlights both the political fissures present in Zuma’s administration, as well as the slow progress being made to tackle bribery, corruption and political patronage networks. This stalemate represents a hindrance to inculcating a culture of corporate compliance and securing South Africa from organised crime, extremist groups and money-laundering operations.
The new Fica bill is a comprehensive amendment to the current Financial Intelligence Centre Act (Fica), which in 2003 established the Financial Intelligence Centre (FIC), the state agency empowered to identify and investigate the unlawful proceeds of crime passing through South Africa’s financial system, and the regulations imposed on financial institutions and others to implement anti-money-laundering and identity verification controls. The amendment proposes several new obligations on the private sector, bringing the regulations in line with some FATF recommendations and international best practice:
l Flexible and ongoing due diligence: For most South Africans, the acronym “Fica” recalls an often tedious journey through regulations, paperwork and bank queues to verify addresses and identities. This has become a staple of South African consumer life, but the amendment bill will empower accountable financial institutions to adopt a more flexible and nuanced way of complying with customer due diligence obligations. For example, the amend-
ment suggests that institutions adopt a risk-focused approach, specifically tailored to the customers, countries, products and delivery channels being used at any given time. This may be a reprieve for the many South Africans who are excluded from the formal economy and will shift the focus of financial institutions from compliance boxticking to understanding and targeting specific suspicious activity and risks. Accountable institutions will also be required to implement ongoing KnowYour-Customer (KYC) due diligence checks, scrutinising transactions in respect of the client’s source of wealth and individualised risk profile.
l Increasing transparency in the financial system:
Many wealthy individuals make use of trusts, partnerships or corporate entities to obscure their ownership of a specific asset or involvement in a transaction. The new bill will thus require institutions that fall within its ambit to identify and verify the beneficial ownership and control of juristic persons. This requirement also comes at a time when there have been growing international concerns over the use
of opaque corporate vehicles, often in offshore jurisdictions, to engage in illicit transactions and avoid tax.
The Fica amendment bill defines two new classes of customers, namely “domestic prominent influential persons” and “foreign prominent public officials”. These individuals, and their family and associates, will be subject to enhanced due diligence and source of wealth checks by prescribed institutions, bringing local regulations in line with the monitoring of so-called “Politically Exposed Persons” under FATF requirements. Of note, the amendment extends beyond politically influential individuals, to include senior private sector executives in the employ of highturnover companies or companies that contract with the state.
In terms of the Fica amendment bill, all entities falling within the ambit of the legislation will be required to develop and implement a Risk Management and Compliance Programme – internal rules and processes aimed at meeting the obligations set by the
amendment, focused more broadly on preventing terrorism financing and money laundering. All due diligence, Know-Your-Customer checks and internal compliance procedures must be documented by accountable institutions, and employees must be trained to recognise risks and apply Fica consistently.
The amendment would effectively modernise regulations on financial crime, and bring the country in line with its international obligations. Of course, these obligations are wildly unpopular among those who might find themselves classified as “prominent persons”, subject to greater scrutiny of their financial affairs and association with politicians and the state.
The loud and unfounded criticism provided by the amendment bill’s political opponents may provide the clearest indication of why it should be signed into law – and why businesses must take a robust, risk-focused approach to cleaning up the economy.
(See Editorial)
l Thorne Godinho is an analyst at S-RM, an international risk consulting company with offices in Cape Town. n
AUSTRALIANS TAKE HUGE PRIDE IN the Sydney Harbour Bridge for its design – and because it is so huge. Bill Bryson in his book Down Under describes the structure: “From a distance it has a kind of gallant restraint, majestic but not assertive, but up close it is all might. It soars above you, so high that you could pass a ten-storey building beneath it, and looks like the heaviest thing on earth. Everything that is in it – the stone blocks in its four towers, the latticework of girders, the metal plates, the six-million rivets (with heads like halved apples) – is the big-
gest of its type you have ever seen... This is a great bridge.”
The bridge finally opened on 19 March 1932. At 505 metres, it was aiming to become the largest singlespan-arch bridge in the world. Alas, just before the ceremonial cutting of the ribbon, Bryson wryly records that “the Bayonne bridge in New York quietly opened and was found to be 6.35cm – 0.121% longer.”
This story is told mainly for the benefit of Mr Skhumbuzo Macozoma, the man appointed to take charge of the South African National Roads Agency Ltd, (Sanral) to replace its long-serv-
ing founder, CEO Nazir Alli.
Sanral has not enjoyed a happy relationship with civil society for the last decade of Alli’s long tenure. He believes that Bishop Geoff Davies of SAFCEI (Southern African Faith Communities’ Environment Institute), Wayne Duvenage of Outa (Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse) and I, John Clarke, are largely to blame for
Controversial Sanral CEO Nazir Alli has retired, to be succeeded by former fellow board member Skhumbuzo Macozoma. As a welcoming gift,
John Clarke ofers a story for him to ponder …
the alienation. “Beneficiaries of the unearned dividend of apartheid” is how he groups us.
Ten years ago I tried to engage Nazir Alli in a dialogue around our respective visions of development, hoping we could find common ground over his plans to shorten the N2 route via a shortcut along the Wild Coast. We were hoping to persuade Sanral to just move the alignment more inland, well away from the rich titanium deposits in the Xolobeni mineral sands, and away from the Msikaba Vulture Colony.
By the end of the conversation we were on first-name terms. He said his door was always open. Alas it soon became apparent that his mind remained firmly shut. Not only against the idea of moving the alignment inland (which would have obviated the need for the mega bridge crossings over the Msikaba and Mtentu river gorges), but shut to any perspective that challenged or contradicted his dogmatic, top-down, technology driven, money-measured, “bigger is better” approach to development.
Our engagement soon turned into a protracted email confrontation. Still,
he refused to hear what we were advocating. Confrontation has now soured into adversarial hostility.
I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry when I recently received a Sanral PowerPoint presentation which tries to “sell” the N2 Wild Coast Toll Road as “not just a road project, but a catalyst for other development”. It assiduously avoids any mention of the Xolobeni Mineral Sands “development” (see noses94, 116, 158, 195, 199 & 201). For years Alli has protested (too much?) that there is no connection.
Sanral’s Wild Coast road project still pivots around its two mega bridges.
At 580m the span of the Msikaba bridge beats the Sydney Harbour Bridge by 74m. But the total deck length of the Mtentu Bridge falls 16m short of that bridge. It is only 1,133m.
To give a sense of comparative scale, it would have been clever to superimpose the Sydney Harbour Bridge over the two Wild Coast mega structures. They are in the same league. Moreover, the Wild Coast bridges are much more beautiful than the giant “Coat Hanger” of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Instead Sanral “scales” their designs by superimposing the Hillbrow
Tower and the Ponte “Vodacom” skyscrapers in the presentation.
There is irony in their choice of these two structures as a reference. Both symbolise the worst of 1970s urban architecture, an era when higher and bigger was assumed to be better, when today they are seen as brutally dehumanising displays of power and excess and the sort of technology driven hubris first encountered with the allegory of the Tower of Babel.
They betray a wholly inappropriate mindset, totally out of character with the amaMpondo Cultural Heritage Landscape that last month was named as one of “South Africa’s Top Ten Endangered Heritage Sites”.
Sustaining the Wild Coast chairperson, Margie Pretorius, has written to Macozoma inviting him to “walk the Wild Coast,” to reflect again on what “development” really means, and how state resources really can serve people. If he accepts, we will commence the walk at the Mzamba footbridge, immediately below where Sanral plans to build the first of nine bridges along the 96km “green fields” section.
If one contrasts the Sanral megabridges with the Mzamba footbridge, incommensurability of the two development paradigms is stark.
Whereas the Sanral development philosophy under Alli’s tenure was “bigger is better”, technology driven, money measured, elitist and efficient, the human scale development model that underlies the Mzamba footbridge is from the gut, people-centred, needs-based and ecologically sensi-
tive. My mentor, Professor Manfred Max-Neef’s explanation can be found on YouTube – see “Manfred Max-Neef explains the Human Needs Matrix”.
I bear Alli no malice. He has tried so hard to get these mega bridges built but all he has to show is a growing polarisation and an increasingly unbridgeable chasm between Sanral and civil society. I weep for him. I hope in his retirement he will finally come to understand the power of love will always triumph over the love of power. I hope even more that his departure will now allow Sanral’s vast technological prowess and engineering bril-
liance to be harnessed to build many more bridges, but bridges that scratch the real itch, like the Mzamba footbridge that serves the needs of the people of the Pondo hills.
That project shows that money is necessary and has its place, but only when the beneficiaries are respected as active participants in the development process. Development is about people, not about objects.
The Mzamba footbridge cost approximately R5 million, including the costing of donated time of volunteers and the management time of Marlene Wagner and colleagues from the NGO Build Collective, (www.buildcollective.net) who designed, constructed and managed the project with a local steering committee (see Facebook page Bridging Mzamba).
Divide R5m into the R2.5 billion mega bridge bill and one could comfortably afford to build 500 similar footbridges – far more than needed. Instead of making another new big environmental footprint, why not simply use the existing footprint and upgrade rural roads in partnership with the people?
Ultimately it is not about the amount of money, or the volume of traffic as it is about the quality of community life that results. That can only happen when technology is placed at the service of the other two members of the World Survival Trinity: nature and people.
Seen that way, Sanral’s N2 Wild Coast Toll Road is obscene and absurd. n
Ultimately it is not about the quantum of money, or the volume of traffic as it is about the quality of community life that resultsArtist’s impression of the proposed Msikaba bridge
PROF GIRISH MODI, DISTINGUISHED head of neurology at Wits University, must be wondering whether he had a brainstorm when he handed over R1.5 million in US dollars to a company called Castlepines in Sydney, Australia.
The professor, who also has a lucrative private practice at Life Brenthurst Clinic in Parktown, Johannesburg, stumped up the $130,000 to fund a due diligence by Castlepines Global Equity, lined up to deliver US$300m to kickstart a luxury housing/retail development in north-west Mozambique.
Castlepines Global Equity, registered in the British Virgin Islands, doesn’t publish its annual accounts for public scrutiny, despite being apparently entrusted with billions of dollars annually – in insurance and pension funds dollars – to invest in massive private and governmental projects around the world. Its associated Castlepines Corporation (Australia) Pty Ltd, is just as reticent.
With a tiny staff – one man in Joburg for Africa and the MidEast, working from home – Castlepines flies so far under the radar that some speculate that it doesn’t even exist. Certainly, for the press, they’re a bunch of unapproachable, hard-to-tie-down curmudgeons.
Recipients of Castlepines investmentfor-equity billions must pledge not to
give any information about their investor to “any third party, including the investment community”. Should a recipient receive a court subpoena requiring disclosure about Castlepines, there must be immediate consultation “on the advisability of taking available legal steps to resist or narrow such request”.
The Wepani Village development, on 25 hectares outside Nampula, Mozambique’s fourth-largest city is more than 2,000km north of the capital, Maputo. It is the ambitious $600m (R8.3bn –yes billion) shopping centre/luxury housing project of Joburg “funding facilitator” Geoffrey Freeman and Mozambican businessman, Dula Magide.
The master development plan includes 740 apartments, 31 luxury houses and a 160-bed hospital.
Modi came into the enterprise on the carrot that he would run the hospital. His $130,000 payment to Castlepines gave him an 8% stake in Freeman/ Magide’s Mozambique-registered company Wepani Lda.
Modi’s $130,000 was duly dispatched to Sydney in two separate drafts. Then Castlepines dropped a bombshell: they were pulling out. Wepani did not fit their investment criteria; the project was “unbankable”. And the prof’s $130,000 – as stipulated in the now-cancelled Letter of Engagement
– was non-refundable. The Wepani partners were incensed and speculated that they had become victims of what Geoffrey Freeman describes as “a global scam operation”.
Says Freeman: “Prof Modi said there’s something definitely strange here. He had this friend who’s in banking in Dubai, who came back and said: ‘Guys, I think you’ve got a serious problem here; these people don’t exist’.”
Freeman has complained to the Financial Services Board that Castlepines “are not what they claim to be or are able to do”. The FSB has confirmed “the matter will be investigated”.
Castelpines’ “man in Africa” Andre Botha tells Noseweek that Freeman is “motivated by malice”.
There has been speculation about Castlepines on the internet for years. Sample postings: We have been seeking information about Castlepines Corporation Australia and its ability to raise funding in excess of US$100m for major infrastructure projects (2011)… They were deregistered in Australia in November last year (2008) …The principal has been subject of litigation with an Australian bank before… They are an unknown entity in Australia although their principals are known…
Geoffrey Freeman, an alumnus of King David School, Linksfield, is a wheeler-dealer in traditional Joburg
You have probably never heard of Castlepines Corporation. Yet every year, says its chief executive David Grose, pension funds and insurance companies ofer him so many billions of dollars to invest that he can’t place it all. Does that sound too good to be true? Jack Lundin investigates
mould. He describes himself as a “funding facilitator”, and waxes eloquent on current projects such as “facilitating” R2.5bn for a client to snap up Caltex’s 845 petrol stations, and negotiations with Lafarge, the world’s largest cement company, over a 20,000-hectare limestone concession.
Like his Castlepines nemesis, Freeman is a will-o’-the-wisp, with no office, no landline; strictly a laptop-and-cell operator, working from home. He describes Dula Magide (owner of a 57% majority stake in Wepani) as a Mozambique businessman active in Nampula Province who’s just flogged a couple of mega-rich graphite concessions to Australia’s Syrah Resources.
Freeman’s introduction to Castlepines, as he tells it, came via Ken, manager of Mugg & Bean in Sandton City. Over breakfast he told Ken he was on the hunt for some mega funding and Ken suggested he meet one of his regulars, Andre Botha.
“Andre said yes, we can definitely help you,” says Freeman. “He said Castlepines would fund 100%, take 50% equity and at their exit we’d repay
the capital plus interest. We just had to put up US$130,000 for lawyers and accountants to do the corporate and tax structuring.”
Botha, 54, is a former advocate who explains to Noseweek that he resigned from the Johannesburg Bar after six years “in order to do other work”. In 2010 he began his present self-employed “contractor” role as Castlepines’ Strategic Adviser and General Manager Africa and Middle East. To help with the job he beefed up on development finance with some short courses at Stellenbosch Business School.
Botha also operates from home – his emails bear the address 12 Anderson Lane, Lambton in Germiston, with a landline number that hasn’t worked for a while. The address is the regular meeting place for an enterprise named HealingPoint, which ministers to trauma victims through “family constellations workshops”, with healing to those suffering from negative emotions, angst or panic.
Castlepines Corp had three founding partners: property director David Grose; E Wayne Starr, a real estate
tycoon in Houston, Texas, where he headed Starr Corporation Inc; and Thomas Doo, member of a powerful Chinese merchant family in New Zealand. Starr died five years ago aged 66; Doo retired to Auckland in his 80s.
The venture grew out of Grose Property Holdings, a New Zealand property investment company formed by David Grose in 1975. Around 25 years ago Grose joined up with Starr and Doo and they became Castlepines Corporation, describing themselves as a consortium of private sector investors seeking to buy long-term conservatively yielding assets that provided a secure stream of passive income in order “to provide income to the superannuation funds of the principals”. In other words, Castlepines was a pension money-raiser for Messrs Grose, Starr and Doo.
In the early years, under David Grose at Grose Property Holdings, the trio pursued an aggressive policy of “risk-taking and a preference for undervalued assets capable of renovation”. Later on, “owing to the age of Mr Starr,” a more conservative acquisition style was introduced.
A former Castlepines director is Peter Phippen, present head of Abbotts Valuers, one of Australia’s leading property valuers. Phippen was not inclined to talk to Noseweek. “I have had nothing to do with Castlepines for years – why are you contacting me?” he demanded from Sydney.
What was his role at Castlepines? Can he confirm that when he was involved Castlepines was a genuine global investor with access to many billions of dollars for investment?
Phippen replied: “When Castlepines Corporation commenced operations over 25 years ago and I was recruited, I had to sign confidentiality agreements thicker than an old phone book, so I am unable to help you. I suggest you find another story to pursue – no one who is or was ever involved with CC will tell you anything. People who deal in multi-billions and who make the world turn do not want publicity.”
It’s hardly surprising that Phippen is press-shy. In 2008 he was called before the New South Wales Supreme Court for questioning by liquidator PricewaterhouseCoopers into the demise of Australian Capital Reserve (ACR), a debenture issuer that had collapsed owing 7,000 investors around
Au$300m. It was alleged that Phippen had overvalued property appraisals to assist ACR directors in their eleventhhour bid to attract hundreds of millions of dollars from investors.
This followed revelations that Phippen had negotiated to buy a coastal apartment from ACR at a discount of Au$200,000. Phippen denied all impropriety and said heart surgery a few years previously could have affected his memory.
At Castlepines today, its now-ageing founding partner David Grose calls the shots as chief executive officer and head of acquisitions. There’s a telling picture of his style in his presentation video at a 2014 fund-raiser in Tunis for Tunisia Economic City. TEC is a grandiose if implausible US$180bn Saudisponsored project to create a “new Dubai” over 90km2 in economically stagnant Tunisia.
In the video (watch it on Noseweek’s internet edition) Grose explains that Castlepines is a private pension fund headquartered in Sydney, Australia. “We are partners with public pension funds and insurance companies who constantly offer me very substantial sums, many billions of dollars per year, for new projects that we do not use,” he tells his audience.
Tunisia Economic City matches the Castlepines criteria perfectly, declares Grose, announcing partner approval for an investment of US$3bn, increasing to US$10bn within five years. “We are ready to start now.”
As for Castlepines’ credibility, rather than “bore you with the past”, Grose gives his audience some impressive if vague information about three of the “more significant” projects that year. With no identification of country or client, they are:
l A €4bn rail project in Northern Europe, partnered with a government. A three-year construction programme had begun;
l US$800m for barges carrying floating power plants to two African countries to supply low-cost power. Total orders were for 33,180-megaWatt floating plants, for US$6.7bn;
l The approval of £6bn “for an energy project”.
Nothing much has since happened with the grand Tunisia Economic City venture. That country remains in economic meltdown and, in sponsoring
Saudi Arabia, TEC is no longer considered a serious project. Prince Mohammad bin Salman, the youthful new Deputy Crown Prince, defence minister and head of the embryo Council for Economic and Development Affairs, has little appetite for this sort of esoteric indulgence – he’d prefer to give any spare cash to Egypt.
One project in 2014 that Grose didn’t mention in that Tunis video, but which Noseweek has managed to track down to time and place, was a projected international airport to handle 6.5 million passengers annually, to be built on Van Don island in Quang Ninh Province, Vietnam.
In August that year Dolin Han, chairman of South Korean property company Joinus, announced that Australia’s Castlepines Corp had delivered a written commitment to invest US$1.1bn in the airport and a nearby resort complex. Han said the first instalment of US$800m would arrive after “official agreement had been reached” and construction would begin in the first quarter of 2015.
The following year, however, Joinus was replaced as Van Don’s developer by Vietnamese property company Sun Group. Provincial management authority deputy director Trinh van Hong said a new investor had to be found, as under Joinus, there had been no positive progress.
In Joburg, Andre Botha, Castlepines
Global Equity GM (Africa and MidEast) says: “The project in Tunisia has been delayed by political violence in the country, but remains planned for future implementation.” He can offer no amplification on the three 2014 projects scantily mentioned by David Grose in his Tunis presentation. “These projects are ongoing and the details are confidential,” says Botha. He declines comment on the apparent fall-through of Castlepines’ US$1.1bn investment in Vietnam’s Van Don Airport.
Last year Castlepines received more media plaudits for racing to the aid of Australia’s troubled Discovery Metals, offering US$110m to pay Discovery’s debts and develop its underground copper mine in Botswana. Four months later, however, Discovery’s lender syndicate rejected the Castlepines rescue package and Discovery went into voluntary administration.
Regarding Wepani Village in Mozambique, Botha says: “Wepani was unable or unwilling to meet our agreed investment criteria. Accordingly the project failed to satisfy our due diligence examination.
“Unfortunately, sometimes our clients overestimate the commercial viability of their projects and their projects fail our due diligence process, as was the case with Wepani.”
Prof Girish Modi declines to give a view on Castlepines and his lost US$130,000. Andre Botha says: “Wepani paid this fee for outsourced legal and tax advisers to conduct the due diligence on our behalf. This fee is nonrefundable.”
From Castlepines’ “representative office” in London at 39 St James’s Street, Piccadilly (they rent one of those units that provide a swish address) chief executive David Grose emailed Wepani’s Geoffrey Freeman: “You seem incapable of understanding that you have not even remotely met our criteria with your current project. What you do from here is entirely up to you.”
Despite Castlepines’ rebuff, Geoffrey Freeman tells Noseweek he has now secured new investors for Wepani: Industrial and Chemical Bank of China has “committed” to put up half the money, on condition that Bank of China comes up with the other half. Chinese State Construction Engineering Corp, he says, will do the construction. n
Geoffrey Freeman says he has now secured new investors for Wepani: Industrial and Chemical Bank of China has “committed” to put up half the money
THE LOOTING OF PRETORIA’S municipal coffers (nose203) did not stop when the DA won the recent local elections. Corrupt Tshwane officials and their cohorts are still defrauding the metro at an alarming rate – and still getting away with it. (So far only three city officials are facing criminal charges – and even that could not be confirmed.)
It seems new DA Mayor Solly Msimanga and his team are overwhelmed by the extent of the rot – an almost impenetrable maze of skullduggery is being uncovered in the municipality.
Last month chaos broke out during a council meeting when thugs occupying the opposition benches physically attacked the new political leadership. While the bottle throwing and fist fighting in the council chamber were making the headlines, a Who’s Who of the municipality’s Supply Chain Management were sipping cappuccinos with their freewheeling fraudster friends and relatives who make their living masquerading as bona fide suppliers. Many of them acquired their “skills” from former mayor Sputla Ramokgopa’s Tshepo 10,000 Programme, which was supposed to turn Pretoria’s unemployed youth into entrepreneurs. Instead it appears to have bred a new generation of tenderpreneurs.
Not all those involved in defrauding
the municipality are unemployed black youths from the townships. Networks of white officials and their relatives are as expert at taking the loopholes and shortcuts created in the city’s supply chain to accommodate small-time entrepreneurs. (See accompanying story.)
Many of the township “Tshepos” have lately formed co-operatives because these qualify as preferred suppliers for orders worth up to R30,000, when only three quotes need be submitted. The system has triggered a corruption fest. To recap on an example given in last month’s Noseweek: a quote for 100 units of an item would be R300 per unit, while a quote for 50 of the identical item, supplied a week later by the same company, would simply be increased to R600 per unit to attain the magic qualifying figure of R30,000. Both bids are accepted by city officials, with no questions asked.
In contravention of the preferred bidder directive the co-ops are also given orders for much larger amounts, all without a tender process, as long as three quotes are in place.
Time and again companies that reportedly exist on paper only submit the required second and third quotes. Traditional long-term tender contracts in place for the same goods and services are totally disregarded in favour of these “do good” frauds, even though the
long-term contractor’s tendered price is often up to 400% cheaper than that of the tenderpreneurs-in-training.
Reams of documents in Noseweek’s possession contain thousands of examples. For instance, 161 purchase orders, worth almost R68m, were issued to just 12 of these new “co-ops” between May and August this year. Compared to the long-term tenders that were already in place for the same items, the overspend involved was more than R25m.
In August one of these new co-operatives, Meetsing Primary Co-op, supplied 2,000 prepaid meters for around R4m, while the company that had won the tender would have supplied the same meters for R1.8m. Meetsing Primary Co-op also supplied electrical mini sub-stations at four-times the tendered price, robbing the cash-strapped metro of a further R1.5m. In addition they received an order for something described as “cleaning” at R16,800 and this service was delivered no fewer than 11 times, all on one day. Meetsing’s sales to the council totalled R9m over the threemonth period. Noseweek’s repeated calls to Meetsing Motubatse, who is listed in council documents as the co-op representative, remained unanswered
Another of the 12 co-ops, Safety Line, supplied a range of goods from garden tools to food for township crèches and had a turnover of R10m in one month.
Tshwane’s new DA Mayor, Solly Msimanga, is drowning in the sea of corruption left by his ANC predecessor.Tshwane’s former mayor Sputla Ramokgopa
When Noseweek called the Safety Line Co-op representative Regina Mojipelo, she said she only speaks Tswana – and rang off. Legae Housing Project received orders for grave digging, toilet paper and the generation of finaldemand letters and turned over R6.7m in three months.
But are these co-ops for real? Noseweek called the listed members of another six of the 12 co-ops and in all cases the cell phone numbers went unanswered. A call to the telephone number of Wining (sic) Minds Farming was answered by a man who said he had never heard of an entity with that name. He was surprised to learn that his name and number appeared on the co-op’s documents filed at the council, and that it had supplied pre-paid meters and mini substations worth R8.9m in just 15 days to the Tshwane metro. He told Noseweek he had applied to take part in the Tshepo 10,000 Programme, but was informed he had not been accepted. Someone in the know has clearly stolen his identity to better defraud the Tshwane municipality.
When Noseweek phoned another of the cellphone numbers listed for Wining Minds Farming, someone called Mandla answered and said Wining Minds was his brother Bongi’s company. Mandla said Bongi was younger than 35 and therefore qualified for the Tshepo 10,000 Programme. He said he was mentoring Bongi. In fact, Mandla was running the business as well as financing it, while Bongi was studying Town Planning. When asked about the other directors, Mandla said one was living in Welkom and the other three, in townships around Tshwane. Noseweek did not want to spoil a happy conversation by asking what role they play in the company and whether they are actually aware that they are partners in a multi-million-rand business.
Lucrative money-making scams have brought Tshwane to the brink of financial administration. Early in October the newly appointed MMC for Finance, Mare-Lise Fourie, gave some insight into the financial chaos left behind by the ANC: an unfunded budget, an accumulated deficit, an unaffordable fleet management contract, an unsupportive IT system and little management oversight or control over outsourced contractors, she wrote in a notice to DA councillors. She said none of these could be rectified in the short term. n
COLLUSIVE
BIDDING BY SUPPLIERSof goods and services to the Tshwane municipal administration happens frequently – and often quite openly, with some of the five chief storekeepers in cahoots with vendors, overriding the system to benefit their own back pockets, inside sources have told Noseweek
A chief storekeeper would both create and release a purchase requisition, which is contrary to the National Treasury’s guidelines about the segregation of duties. He/she would then pass it on to a specific buyer who is in on the deal. The buyer only procures the three regulation quotes from companies in their fraud syndicate so that in reality there is no competition. The hugely inflated profit is shared among the conspiring parties.
Collusive bidding is a criminal offence and against section 4 (1)(b)(iii) of the Competition Act.
In September Noseweek described one such deal for the supply of energysaving light bulbs. Several companies submitted quotes but it appears as though some companies exist only on paper – and that the owners are all known or related to each other.
Noseweek’s lead came from eNCA’s investigative programme, CheckPoint, in which Angelique Lombaard was asked why her company Batle-
gang Trading quoted R300 for a R79 light bulb. She asked the journalist to contact her business partner, LeRoy van Niekerk for the answer. It soon emerged that he had submitted a slightly lower quote for the same globes in the name of another company, Tloxile Supplier. Van Niekerk said Angelique buys the globes from his company when she gets the order, and that he in turn buys them from a retailer. Needless to say each link in the chain adds a markup but without adding any value to the product.
Neither Batlegang Trading nor Tloxile Supplier is registered for VAT, according to the documents leaked to Noseweek, but the two companies received orders worth a total of R4.5 million from Tshwane in 12 months.
Matthew Gerstner, the spokesperson for the Tshwane Mayor, says: “Those contracts have been stopped and disciplinary processes have begun. We have instituted a full forensic investigation by an external audit firm into this matter; thereafter criminal charges may follow.”
Yet Noseweek sources in the Tshwane administration have no knowledge of any of this and both Angelique Lombaard and Le-Roy van Niekerk are still doing business with Tshwane.
Van Niekerk’s alleged group of companies and co-ops reaches much fur-
Nearest and dearest (and their many friends) make big bucks out of crooked tenderpreneur cartels.
Susan Puren
ther and higher than Batlegang and Tloxile. His fiancée, 21-year-old Vadruscka Diedericks, his father, G J van Niekerk and his brother Kurt are all doing “business” with Tshwane, supplying a variety of goods under several company names. Of note is the fact that the second and third quotes – required by the Treasury before an order is issued – are almost always submitted by one or other of the (at least) eight companies in the family’s stable. Although they use different postal addresses, it is alleged that the grouping operates from the same premises in Pretoria North.
Young Ms Diedericks is listed as a director of Tshwane North Electrical Co-operative. It has no VAT number and its business address is a flat in Pretoria Gardens. In the past financial year Tshwane North Electrical supplied the metro with goods – ranging from clothing to mini electrical substations – worth R15m. The city would have saved more than R6m had these been supplied by the contractors who originally won the different tenders.
When Noseweek went looking for Diedericks, hoping to elicit her recipe for business success, she was not to be found at Tshwane North Electrical but at one of two new Pretoria nail bars, of which she is the proud owner: Planet Nails in Wonderpark Shopping Centre and Planet Nails in Pretoria North.
Le-Roy van Niekerk also answered a number listed for Tshwane North Electrical saying Ms Diedericks – “a
director of the company” – was on maternity leave. He refused to supply Noseweek with her contact details but claimed to be an agent for the company.
When confronted about the alleged collusive bidding he said it was not true and asked that questions be sent to him – then refused to supply his email address.
During the last financial year Kurt van Niekerk’s company, Consumable Warehouse and G J van Niekerk’s company, Tirusano Services & Trading, received orders worth nearly R5m from Tshwane. The total turnover for the eight companies was R31.6 million.
One of Tshwane’s chief storekeepers, Robert Slaughter, created and released the purchase requisitions for a significant number of the orders that went to the Van Niekerk grouping.
Slaughter is a larger-than-life character with a love of tattoos, exotic cars and luxury holidays on sun-drenched Indian Ocean islands. It’s alleged that in May this year Le-Roy van Niekerk sponsored a Mauritius holiday for the Slaughters and several other Tshwane employees and their families. During the trip Le-Roy announced
his engagement to Vadruscka, saying on Facebook “She said yes!”
The Facebook profile os minicipal storekeeper Robert Slaughter, and that of his wife, Vanessa, has a wealth of personal information about the cosy networks of friends and friends-offriends and relations-of-friends who do business with the Tshwane Metro. LeRoy, Kurt, Vadruscka, her brother Damian and members of other “families” that draw from the lucrative Tshwane budget constantly “like” and “love” pictures of each other’s flashy cars, hunting trips and newborn babies. Yet the declarations of interest that accompany the hundreds of quotes they have submitted to the municipality, all state that they have no ties with any metro employee.
For example, Wizeli Trading’s owner Zelde Snyman declared over and over that she had no relationship with anyone involved in the adjudication of the hundreds of bids she submitted. Not only was Snyman on the alleged sponsored Mauritius trip, she is also married to Willie Snyman, a storekeeper in charge of a municipal warehouse that is under Robert Slaughter’s control.
There are at least four companies in the Snyman stable: Wizeli Trad-
ing; Wakewood Technical Corporation; Panbuch Trading; and Phoenixmoon Trading. They all submit quotes for the same goods and services but with small differences in price. All of them are reportedly connected and known to Slaughter.
It is alleged that Samantha Wyeth, the registered owner of Phoenixmoon, is Slaughter’s step-daughter, while Corrie Snyman, the brother of storekeeper Willie Snyman, is a shareholder of Wakewood Technical Corp.
Noseweek’s sources say Panbuch’s owner, Marisca Rademeyer, is in business with Zelde Snyman of Wizeli Trading. Marisca denied this (but then abruptly ended the call).
Over the past few years the Tshwane Metro took good financial care of the
Snyman group and even placed orders with them for highly specialised work. This includes renovations to historical structures like the City Hall and several buildings on Church Square that were carried out by Wizeli Trading.
Calls to Zelde Snyman and Samantha Wyeth’s cell phone numbers went unanswered. The quotes submitted by Corrie Snyman had no contact details for him. Slaughter did not reply to questions about the allegations.
These marauding companies and dishonest officials who so readily feed them with public money are minor examples of the bid-rigging cartels that have thrived in the corrupt environment of the previous ANC regime in Tshwane. It remains to be seen whether the DA will be able to stop them in their tracks.
Shortly before Noseweek went to press, the new mayor announced that disciplinarly action had been instituted against several officials involved in the multi-million-rand contract to renovate the City Hall. n
THE REALLY BIG DIFFERENCE ARISING from South Africa’s recent local government elections is that they considerably weakened President Jacob Zuma’s ability to control the succession race – and dispense patronage.
Zuma’s hopes for his ex-wife Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma to succeed him could well have been dashed – leaving Zweli Mkhize (ANC Treasurer and former KwaZulu-Natal premier) as his most likely successor.
This is the view of political scientist and author RW Johnson, interviewed by Noseweek in his office at his home in Constantia, Cape Town.
“Many people feel that Zuma cost the ANC a lot of votes – which he did,” said Johnson. “The ANC lost something like 1,000 council seats around the country in the election. And those are not the only losses. Many ANC people working in the administrations of Johannesburg, Port Elizabeth and Pretoria will now lose their jobs because they are ANC cadres whose positions were based only on tenders and contracts. They were damn useless at their jobs.
“Add all that up and thousands of people in the ANC will lose their jobs and salaries as a direct result of these elections.
“In other words, Zuma’s decline has now cost them enormous amounts in patronage.”
The reason for the turnaround on Dlamini-Zuma, Johnson explained, is that people will see her as “a continuation of Zuma by other means”.While his ability to control the succession will be a lot weaker than it was, “this doesn’t mean he will be chucked out,”
says Johnson, “but it does mean other possibilities are now much stronger and that Zweli Mkhize is the most likely successor to Jacob Zuma as president.”
In his most recent book, How Long Will South Africa Survive? The Looming Crisis (2015), Johnson concluded that South Africa was on its way to an International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout, followed by regime change. And that while Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa “clearly wants” the position of president, “I don’t see how he can possibly get it, unless there’s a sudden change or if Mkhize wants him to get it”.
“Mkhize is in the pound seats here. It’s a very interesting situation,” Johnson said. He explains: “A key reason for Mkhize’s rise is simply because he has his base in KwaZulu-Natal, which is the critical province.”
An Emeritus Fellow of Magdalen College, Johnson, 73, has published 12 books, numerous academic papers and many articles for the international press. He recently completed an analysis of the local election results.
His book on Oxford, Look Back in Laughter – Oxford’s Post-War Golden Age, came out at the same time last year as How Long Will SA Survive? The Oxford book was described by The Times Literary Supplement as “a marvelous memoir about his three
decades in Oxford”.
Behind his desk is a photograph of an Oxford group taught by Johnson: his former students include Britain’s Health Minister, Jeremy Hunt, former Foreign Secretary William Hague, former Minister of Energy, Chris Huhne, as well as Gareth Evans, Chancellor of Australian National University.
In 1977, Johnson’s then top-selling book (also titled How Long Will SA Survive?) gave a compelling analysis of the survival prospects of the apartheid government. He looked at how long it would be before the ruling white establishment encountered a regime crisis. The second book of the same title takes the position that the situation in South Africa after 20 years of ANC rule is so bad that we need to ask the same question again.
Considered by some to be a man of controversial views – he doesn’t hesitate to use words like “tribalism” and “buffoonery” – Johnson remains an internationally recognised commentator on South African affairs, known for his frank analysis and lack of political correctness.
Christine Qunta, one-time ANC lawyer and former SABC board member, denounced him for his references to tribalism.
Reviewing Johnson’s book, former US diplomat Brooks Spector calls the author “a kind of a contemporary
South African Cassandra, telling all who will listen or read his predictions, repeatedly, that South Africa as it is presently constituted and governed is headed down a seriously steep, nearly inevitable downward trajectory to a very bad end, ever-accelerating as it heads ever downward…”
Rian Malan, an old friend of Johnson’s, noted in The Spectator last year that, despite Johnson’s publishing and academic record, he has been “shunned by local book fairs and banished from our op-ed pages”.
Johnson’s latest book, said Malan, had been “greeted by an ominous silence here in South Africa, making its way on to local best-seller lists without any review attention, not even attacks from Johnson’s enemies”.
“It seems even they are reconciled to the fact that Johnson is right again. South Africa is in crisis,” wrote Malan.
Johnson, who labels himself a social democrat, is bemused by his reputation as a reactionary and controversial commentator.
Having, through the years, seen developments in South Africa from an economic perspective, he believes the country can either choose to have an ANC government or a modern industrial economy. “It can’t have both.”
He believes South Africa has “a complete misfitgovernment. “We are being ruled by an elite and a party that is completely inappropriate to run a country of this type.
“They’re not sufficiently experi-
enced, skilled or educated to be able to do it and, in a way, it’s not their fault. But… if they continue to be in charge, it is inevitable that things will get worse… As you can see, the political situation is changing.”
He scoffs when asked if South Africa has reached its darkest hour? “Good heavens, no… there is much leeway for things to get a lot worse.”
Johnson has long voiced concern that, while manufacturing and mining industries are decreasing, the public sector – which pays big salaries to a bloated civil service – is the one sector that continues to grow.
“I have been saying these things since the middle of the 90s – and everyone said how reactionary and rightwing I was. I have found it strange… as throughout my life I have had friends around the world, but somehow I have got this purely local reputation as a right-winger. I am certainly not seen that way in Britain, but… you put up with that.
“As things go by, I find that more and more of the people who were attacking me have either emigrated or gone very quiet. And when I bump into them, I find that they agree with me entirely. It is not clear where we disagree,” he told Noseweek.
Johnson has long maintained that Durban is the core of the battle being fought in the ANC at national level. No matter how controversial it may sound, he says, it is highly significant that ANC membership is higher in KwaZulu-Natal than anywhere else. He also says the effects of a large tribal vote – ie the “Zulu bloc” – should not be underestimated.
In a recent address to the Cape Town Press Club, Johnson said one possible scenario that could play out was that the faction forming around Mkhize would work in alliance with Ramaphosa – with Mkhize bringing the Zulu vote behind Ramaphosa as president. Mkhize would then support Ramaphosa as interim president of the ANC from 2017, and then of the country from 2019, with Mkhize becoming deputy president and, ultimately president.
But, in our interview, Johnson downplayed the “happy assumption” that Ramaphosa will step into the position as president. “It depends how it happens. If Zuma had a heart attack, or something like that and he suddenly had to go, then obviously the deputy president would succeed and Ramaphosa would come in, but if it is done in the usual way by a conference and a long build-up, with martialling of votes in the provinces etc, I don’t think Ramaphosa has a hope. That’s because he is a Venda. He doesn’t even have his own province, Limpopo, behind him and Vendas are not very popular elsewhere.
“I laid it out in the book... If you look at it, once the ANC became a serious party… by about 1952, they chose Luthuli, after which they chose Mandela,
Johnson has long maintained that Durban is the core of the battle being fought in the ANC at national levelRW Johnson with his wife, Irina Filatova
then Tambo, then Mbeki, then Zuma as leaders. Every single one of them is Nguni. They are all either Zulus or Xhosas.
“That group has it sewn up. They’ve had the leadership now for over 50 years. It takes a bold person to bet that a Venda will break that line. The betting has to be on a Zulu.”
One wonders what the relatively low-profile Mkhize – believed to have fallen out with Zuma in recent times – would be thinking at the moment.
“Mkhize must be in a difficult situation because he knows if he decides to run – the minute that becomes visible – Zuma will try everything to stop him. Zuma wants his ex-wife to succeed him, because he wants someone who will do for him what Ford did for Nixon, to give him immediate amnesties etc.
“He strongly believes his ex-wife will not let her children’s father be put in jail, or be humiliated. That is why she’s his safest bet… He can trust her and she’s a Zulu so that keeps her on the inside track.
“I think Zweli Mkhize, who is no doubt ambitious, can see the situation. Remember, he was not just head of the party in KZN, he was premier as well. So he really was the key man. Mkhize was also one of the key people behind Zuma’s accession to the presidency and could have had any ministry he wanted when Zuma came to power in 2009.
“But what did he want? He wanted to stay and be boss in KZN because that is the base. That’s what really matters. If you’re a Zulu, that’s the key thing. He has that going for him, in a big way, but he also knows that, at the moment, there are tremendous factional fights going on in KZN. Yet no matter which faction… they will all say they support Zuma… because, for KZN ANC politicians, whatever their faction, he is ‘our boy’… it means ‘us’ in power.
“It means Durban is the capital of the country. It means we get all sorts of pork barrel that others don’t, we get the Commonwealth Games, the new airport... he who controls Durban will control much of the province and, in turn, the ANC, and the country.
“They understand all that. This is the basic reason why it’s difficult to get rid of Zuma. [ANC Secretary-Gen-
eral] Gwede Mantashe literally gave the game away when he said the split (into Cope) that took place when the ANC got rid of Mbeki, would be nothing compared to what would happen with Zuma.
“What he meant is, if they chucked out the first Zulu leader in 50 years, there would be holy hell from KZN. They would not stand for that… and Zulus are much more cohesive than Xhosas. Zulus have one king and see themselves as one group. They would not take that lying down.
“Think back to when Vorster was president and Buthelezi was the most outspoken African leader… who would continually say, ‘we demand universal suffrage’, ‘release Mandela’ and ‘unban the ANC’ etc. Vorster was furious… but he knew what half a million angry Zulus could do… knew that was a force to be reckoned with. I think now the ANC government feels just the same.”
In the book, Johnson details how the “Zuma system” actually works and succeeds in making the reader breathless with the realisation that things in South Africa are much worse than ever. For example: key Zuma appointments included the confirmation of Ace Magashule – legendary for corruption – as premier of the Free State.
“It was pure Tammany politics: Magashule was allowed to turn the Free State into his own private kingdom,
making him immensely rich – in return for which he gave Zuma total loyalty. The result was the formation of a political alliance between KZN and the neighbouring provinces of Mpumalanga (where Premier David Mabuza ran a similarly corrupt fiefdom) and the Free State, creating a pro-Zuma bloc which controlled some 40% of the votes at any ANC conference. In effect Zuma had thus already insured himself against any possibility of the sort of insurrection that had deposed (his predecessor, Thabo) Mbeki.
“A similar deal was done in Limpopo province, where Cassel Mathale became premier. In the Northern Cape, the ANC provincial chairman, John Block, became the pivotal figure in a similar web of corruption, revolving – as such things generally did –around tenders and procurement. The same applied exactly to the MK veterans. Thus the Zuma system. In effect, provincial premiers and party bosses were given a licence to plunder, provided they stayed loyal to the chief at the centre. Since the chief and his family were themselves getting rich at a great rate, everyone understood the game.”
The ANC, said Johnson, is currently dissolved into factions and into “regional warlords” who control different parts of the country. “It’s a bit like a medieval kingdom. You have a king who has to sign off on who is going to become a premier. The premiership is a licence to loot. Then the premier, in, say, Free State or Mpumalanga, makes damn sure he controls who becomes mayor – and being mayor is a licence to loot in the towns. That is basically how it works and so on down.
“The medieval king would do this with his barons and he would allow them to loot… but there would always be a limit. The understanding is that they must not go too far. The king does not want a peasant revolt.
“The main thing is, if there’s a war, you have to get troops to fight for me, you owe me your loyalty and you must make sure taxes get paid from there into my national treasury. That was the deal.”
In his book, Johnson cites the figures for what happened at the last ANC conference in Mangaung.
“Then there were three in the premier league, KZN, the Free State and
The ANC is currently dissolved into factions and into regional warlords who control different parts of the country
Mpumalanga. When they got to voting for Zuma or (Kgalema) Motlanthe, the Free State voted, for Zuma 324, Motlanthe nil. KZN voted 858 to nil for Zuma and Mpumalanga voted 427 to 17. Once those three provinces have voted, the game is over. That’s already 40% of the whole conference rounded up for Zuma. He only needed another ten from the remaining six provinces. If you look at it, you find that in the other six provinces, he did no better than even-stevens with Motlanthe. He lost a number of them but of course it didn’t matter.
“That is the basis of Zuma’s power –why, despite all the talk and prophesying for six or nine months now, saying that the ANC must surely now get rid of Zuma, it ain’t happening.
“Also, if you look at the NEC, 85% of the membership hold public sector jobs of one kind or another, which ultimately are under Zuma’s control. They are either in Parliament or in provincial legislatures or the civil service in one way or another… so all of those jobs are potentially within Zuma’s gift. It’s all about patronage.
“Of course, the heart of the matter is KZN… and what we have now is the premier league people saying, ‘Oh please won’t you stay for another term’ and if he can’t or won’t then of course they’ll go for Nkosazana. That is why she is a possible.
“But the recent local elections have most definitely weakened Jacob Zuma’s ability to control the succession.”
Asked for his predictions for the months ahead, Johnson said: “Firstly, I think the downgrade is very likely by the end of the year, but the details will make a lot of difference. The question
is, will we be downgraded by one, two or three of the credit ratings agencies? One is bearable; three is very bad.”
Johnson does not think an IMF bailout will follow easily. “If there was a downgrade, the logical thing to do would be to say, ‘crikey we’re in a hell of a mess,’ and say to the IMF, ‘We don’t want Africa’s greatest non-racial democracy to go down the tubes, we need a big loan, please, and with that we will deal with all our problems.’
“That would be rational, but the politics is that the ANC and the SACP can’t bear the conditionalities that would come with it, and would resist that for all they are worth.
“So, what I fear is that there will be a downgrade and that, instead of going to the IMF, we will drag along the bottom like a ship dragging an anchor and not get out of the mess. Because, frankly, on their own, without that sort of external help, they will not get out of the mess – if anything, they will compound it. And all those patronage seekers… are as hungry as ever and a lot of them have now lost positions in cities, so the patronage won’t stop and those pressures are inimical to good governance.”
Johnson believes that if and when an IMF bailout with conditionalities takes place, “that will be almost the end of the ANC, as they will be bound to split at that point”.
“The Communist party can’t survive that and nor can Cosatu. That would be a rubicon…
“That is why they will resist having it, as they know it is the Rubicon they don’t want to cross.” But such a scenario will take a while to develop. “I doubt whether it will happen in a
year.”
Johnson believes South Africa is in for a tough 2017. “In fact, we’re in for a tough time until the next elections. Only then will we get a new president in charge.
“Nkosazana Zuma would be bad news. She is dreadful – authoritarian and very ideological. She was a terrible Minister of Health and has not been good at anything, really. Also, she will be well over 70, which is a ridiculous age to take on the presidency. I don’t even think she is that keen.
“I think we will be carrying the can for the downgrade, and of course there will be all sorts of politicking going on in advance of the ANC conference and elections so a lot of important realities won’t be treated as realities.”
What is it about Jacob Zuma that enables him to sustain an attitude of blatant denial about what is happening in South Africa?
“I doubt very much that Jacob Zuma is in denial about what is happening in South Africa. He is a shrewd and practical man, not given to Thabo’s grand visions and flights of fancy.
“I think one should take deadly seriously Mamphela Ramphele’s observation that we are governed by thieves. I doubt if there is a single member of the cabinet or even the deputy ministers, who are not thieves. Probably only a few of the white Communists like Cronin and Davies are clean. Perhaps not even all of them.
“One person well in the know suggested to me last week that it really would be best if, on appointment to a minister/deputy-minister job, one was immediately given R100 million, since everyone steals at least that much and
then it would be out of the way and they could just get on with their jobs. This is the world Zuma inhabits and presides over and I am sure he is conscious of every detail.”
Who are the “up-and-comings” in the ANC?
“We are generally told that the Young Turks of the ANC are Fikile Mbalula and Malusi Gigaba. Mbalula is simply a buffoon, a figure of fun. It is completely ludicrous that he had the ambition of displacing Mantashe as ANC Secretary General. It suggests he has a very large and unrealistic ego, so one may be sure the buffoonery will continue, contributing to the general gaiety.
“Gigaba is the genius who ordered that there be no maintenance work done at Eskom during the World Cup season, thus creating a disastrous maintenance backlog. He then followed that up by introducing the visa regulations that did billions of rands of damage to the country’s tourist industry. It is all rather like the ANC having had a disinvestment campaign under apartheid – but in power, it is even better at achieving disinvestment.”
What are your predictions for the 2019 elections?
“There are lots of silly predictions being made about 2019. In 2016 the DA managed to get exactly half the percentage vote that the ANC got. The ANC will also do far better in a general election and with a new leader. The imponderable is the economic fallout from our probable credit downgrade before then.”
Black and white South Africans alike are deeply concerned about the country, Johnson said.
“They are used to this being a country that works and can see that large parts of it aren’t.
“Things could get worse… but I’m an optimist, in the sense that we’ve come through so many bad things as a country: just think of the Anglo Boer War, the Depression, the Second World War and apartheid. These were all terrible experiences, and we’ve come through all of them and the country has grown more prosperous throughout and things have basically improved over the century. I do think that, in the end, one should be optimistic that the longer term trajectory will resume. It’s what everybody wants.” n
RW JOHNSON, THE ELDEST BOY OF SIX children, was born in 1943 into a working class family on Merseyside “opposite Liverpool, overlooking the docks”. His father, Stanley, was an engineer on tankers. His mother, Elsie, left school at 14 but instilled in her children a passion for books. When RW was 13, the family moved to Durban when his father was asked to set up a refuelling base.
As a “fair-skinned, red-headed” teen, Johnson found it difficult to adjust to Durban’s beach culture. He attended Northlands High School, “a blackboard jungle school, with drunken teachers and no discipline” where, “we had to teach ourselves as the teachers were AWOL.” Nevertheless, he grew to love Durban.
Johnson grew up with strong egalitarian, “leftward” ideas and was fascinated by politics and “very challenged” by apartheid, which was “full of moral issues”.
After school he completed a BA at the (then) University of Natal, where he was on the SRC, did “a bit of sport” and worked on the student newspaper, The Dome. He was elected to the SRC on the liberal slate but took part in a number of leftist activities, like trying to integrate social functions between race groups on campus.
“At the University of Natal, they kept a black medical school… and there was a whole campus of black students known as the University of Natal Non-European Section.
“Myself and other students wanted to integrate functions like rag and graduation boards etc.”
Johnson, the first member of his family to go to university, got nine firsts and an upper second, and was a 1964 Rhodes Scholar.
He completed a M.Phil. MA at Oxford and was a fellow and tutor in Politics at Magdalen College, Oxford, for 26 years, from 1969 to 1995. During this period he was a visiting lecturer
and professor at the University of Natal, UCT, the Sorbonne and Stanford.
He decided to return to South Africa and became director of the Helen Suzman Foundation from 1995 until 2001.
Johnson was Southern Africa correspondent for the Sunday Times in London for years and wrote for the London Review of Books and others.
In 2009, Johnson’s left foot was injured while he was swimming and became infected with necrotising fasciitis. The leg had to be amputated above the knee.
Johnson is married to Professor Irina Filatova, an author who has dual Russian-South African citizenship and who was previously head of the African Studies Department at Moscow State University and an Emeritus Professor of UKZN.
“Amazingly, Irina has never been invited to any book festival in South Africa even though she is probably this country’s most distinguished Africanist. She puts this down to having such a politically incorrect husband.”
Johnson’s plans include, “a further memoir, a book about the future of Africa, and maybe a book about the future of social democracy” which. he says is in a bad way everywhere.
When not writing about politics, he listens to music, particularly early rock and roll. “But my chief enjoyment is going out to restaurants and talking.”
“From all those years in Oxford, I got used to having extremely interesting friends… Tories, Trotskyites and Liberals. It doesn’t matter to me. They’re all interesting. In this country, there’s this assumption that, if people disagree with you, they’re your enemy.”
He also swims in the pool – which he finds much more difficult with one leg. “I can’t do the long walks I used to love, or run into the waves. Those things are gone from me.” n
ROLL UP! ROLL UP! BUY YOUR TICKETS FOR the Marianne Thamm Rollercoaster Ride! Uproarious highs, and plunging lows!
This vivid autobiographical exercise is a rare thing – an honest warts-andall record of a life energetically lived. Or living, rather, since the woman in question is vigorously extant at the time of writing, and unlikely to float heavenward soon without fierce resistance. Or downward, for that matter. Marianne, after picaresque beginnings, has found good reason to carpe diem It hasn’t been easy, but she has survived sundry complexities without losing an essential idealism. She is funny, combative, thin-skinned and given to dark imaginings, often leavened by the gift of superb comic timing.
The humour is surprising, with such an operatically unlikely background. Picture this: Daddy was a World War II Luftwaffe pilot, Mama was a unilingual Portuguese cleaning lady and the displaced parents met passionately in post-war London. This linguistic and cultural collision led to the couple’s mutually tolerant relationship. It soon produced sensible engineering-type son Albert, and not-so-sensible little Marianne. Clearly, she was rebellious from the start. Albert left for Australia soon after graduation. To duck family strife?
Who would have thought that such parents could produce a notable writer, journalist, stand-up comic and sharp-tongued social commentator? Raised in the less salubrious bits of Pretoria North, she was not schooled in the suavities of the English tongue. Reading for pleasure and instruction came comparatively late in Marianne’s life, but she compensated richly for the delay.
From the outset, she identified as a boy. Girly frills were rejected. Her adored and supportive mother did her best to impose conventional girlhood, but Mommy didn’t stand a chance. Her little darling was too busy fending off the local perv and competing with the lads at the fishing hole.
One might say Marianne is a feminist. But that would be an understatement. Her
By Marianne Thamm (Tafelberg)
every childhood joy is rooted in love for her mother. Father is never forgiven for being what history and circumstance made him. The irony is that, despite their profound differences, daughter yearned for his approval. He clearly cared deeply for her, but was unable to demonstrate his love in the desired manner. Their sustained warfare endured to the end of his life. And, seemingly, beyond.
It is a curiosity that there is no sympathetic note of Georg Thamm’s years as a prisoner of war. The fact that his Berlin childhood world had collapsed in the bomb rubble, his mother had died. Yes, he had been a 14-year-old Hitler Jugend member, but not quite in the Himmler category. Marianne , furious at defensive male stiff-upperlip conduct, sees her late father as an obstinate relic of obsolete social modelling. It is a relief to know that the old man loved his daughter’s two adopted girls. For Marianne, fighting a losing battle against emotional commitment, eventually succumbed to the love of a partner, and the riotous joys of children. Black children, by the way, which fact failed to ignite any possible latent racism in Georg.
This book is a passionate record of selfdiscovery. Surprisingly, for such an original thinker, it includes the usual religious mea culpa for having been born a privileged white, but that scarcely detracts from the joyful affirmation of a sparkling, subversive mind. n
OOM KITCHENER VAN TONDER was an uncommonly disagreeable man. Not only did he seem to find it necessary to contradict everything anybody ever said, he would also take much pleasure in enraging people for no apparent reason. He would smile with great satisfaction at seeing them grind their teeth and hate him. This curious character trait was explained by a certain girl friend of mine, name of Hooty, because she looked like an owl with great big eyes plus great big thick lenses in her specs. Also she seemed not to blink very often, and as one spoke to her one would expect her perhaps suddenly to swivel her head through 180° as owls are able to do. But I fancied her like anything because of her wondrous sense of humour, which she needed, as ladies do who are not too good-looking. And other blokes were not always trying to shag her, as the saying went in 1946, a nasty situation I’d had with a beautiful blonde lover but recently.
Well, Hooty was doing Psycho at the university so she knew all about selfhatred and stuff, and she said Oom Kitchener had this sorry condition because of the evil name his mother in the Transvaal had bestowed upon him, she who had been a hensopper in the Engelse Oorlog. When Oom K realised Hooty had summed him up so precisely he hated her like anything and called her in Afrikaans a libidinous educated whore, which words I can’t remember otherwise I’d give them to you al fresco with certain grating consonants to offend her sensibilities. Hooty quite liked this since because of her being not too good-looking nobody ever before had accused her of excessive sexuality.
So we had this curious three-cornered relationship. Hooty declared that she
was going to do a Master’s thesis on Oom K when she’d done her BA, which straightway Oom K sought to discourage and provoke hatred towards himself by telling her how he had been given the sobriquet Bangbroek in WW2.
At the Battle of Gazala in Libya he had sought to avoid danger by burying himself in the sand behind a low brick wall like one of those dune vipers in the Namib desert, leaving only his nose sticking out. But she found out somewhere that the battle had become known as the Gazala Gallop when Rommel routed the Allies entirely and almost everybody was taken prisoner except Bangbroek van Tonder who was mentioned in dispatches for his heroism. This heroism filled Hooty with love to such a degree she wished to kiss him and Oupa Bangbroek became so enraged he refused to speak to her evermore for six months.
All this background to our relationship you need to know because, while Hooty was doing Psycho I was doing Dutch and part of my course was a bit on the origins of Afrikaans, all about the language evolving in the mouths of the settler community in the Cape far away from Holland and how it was taken to the republics in the north by the Great Trek, and Die Genootskap vir Regte Af-
rikaners and Ons Skryf soos ons Praat and all that intellectual academic stuff.
Well Oom Bangbroek of course said Ag kak, man, Afrikaans was the language of slaves who weren’t properly educated and the nannies taught it to white kids.
Ja, said I, I’ve heard that interesting theory about the early Cape, whereupon of course Oupa B said Well, that’s all kak too, Afrikaans wasn’t African at all to start with, it started in those Dutch colonies in the East. It was the creole Dutch of the natives and the slaves brought it to the Cape readymade. Here later on it was hijacked by a white elite and declared a European lingo. So Hooty and I cock our heads and give it some thought and Oom B hates us because we are not cross.
Well all that was long long ago, of course, I was only twenty and now I’m ninety. But just last week I watched a fine documentary movie about the eruption of Krakatao in 1863, and they’d got the clothing of the Dutch officials in Java dead accurate, also the houses and the furniture, the food, the vehicles, everything. This is audio/visual history at its very best and, blow me down, what were the old old Javanese natives speaking if not ur-Afrikaans, with all the double negatives and “baie” and the Indonesian vocabulary: blatjang and piesang and biltong and sjambok. Et cetera.
I surf around. I see there’s a book by Professor Gilliomee on the history of the Afrikaner people and language, 500pp, heavy as a brick and erudite, man, erudite, not the sort of thing you’d want to drop on your foot, and perhaps he tells us about all this. I think I’ll get a good night’s sleep and read it.
But what I really want now is for some dear reader who knows about these things to do us a piece on the eastern origins of our second most-used language. n
Smalls ads must be booked and paid for online. Book at: www.noseweek.co.za
Sunny, spacious apartment Fully equipped kitchen 5 mins from Champs Elysees, shops, restaurants, airport shuttle & metro. English TV, free internet and phone. €69 per day www.pvalery.com 25 Rue Paul Valery, Paris 75016 Metro Victor Hugo 082 900 1202; Paris:+33 617 045 290 anne pvalery.com
Paris apartment Centrally located Montorgueil (2nd) Reasonable rates, internet, TV, etc; ljgundav@gmail.com; +33 62 034 6710.
Bordeaux Modern self-catering in the heart of the winelands. Ideal for wine tours. From €73/day. Visit www.bordeauxwinelands.com
Rondebosch fat Two-level garden loft flat, suitable for one person or couple. One bedroom, living room and bathroom, upstairs loft room/sleeping deck, outdoor patio. Off-street parking. R7,500 –R8,000 pm neg. Call 083 300 7558.
Arniston Stunning seafront home perched on cliff top overlooking beach. Breathtaking position and panoramic sea views, 5 bedrooms, 3 en-suite, serviced; 082 706 5902.
Bishopscourt, Klaassens Road, 200m from Kirstenbosch Gardens Rycroft gate. Tranquil B & B in an acre of gardens; 021 762 2323; www.kleinbosheuwel.co.za
Umhlanga 2 bed, 2 bath stunning, serviced sea-facing apartment with DSTV; 082 900 1202; anne@pvalery.com
Scarborough High up in Scarbs – Hilltop House has endless views with the sound of the sea ever-present. The house sleeps 6 in 3 double bedrooms with 2 baths and comes fully equipped as well as DSTV and WiFi. Need details, or more info, email petem@iafrica.com
Nosing around for property in Langebaan or the West Coast? Call Melanie Mouton-Creugnet 079 378 0000 or email melanie@sothebysrealty.co.za
Bishopscourt House on 4,000m², separate flat with own entrance and parking, R25,000,000; Email: iancdh@me.com
Plastic pallets bought & sold. (New international legislation for exporting on wooden pallets! ISPM15); www.premierpallets.co.za or 083 756 6897
Tinus & Gabriel de Jongh paintings bought, sold and valued for estates and insurance; 021 686 4141; dejongh@yebo.co.za; www.tinusdejongh.co.za
Tent Pro cc sells new army tents (5x5m and 10x5m) and dome tents. Go to www.tentpro.co.za or call Philip 082 537 2894.
Paddy Rice Bran Oil is versatile. Forget about the virgins. Heart, kosher, halaal certified. www.ricetic.co.za; info@ricetic.co.za or call 021 286 0059.
Gardening coaching, consultations, design, seasonal planting, make-overs, tidy-ups and irrigation. Jo’burg. Call Paula 083 226 5250; paula@oxfordlandscaping.co.za
Editing and writing services For friendly and creative editing, writing and “how to write” services. Contact Richard; ReWrite@gmail.com; 083 557 7462.
French sworn translator Countrywide. Experienced in mining rights, court and tribunal papers, official documents. My CV, testimonials and samples of my translations are available on request. Christine: 071 356 8279; christine@thefrenchpage.com
A beautifully designed brochure relays a powerful message vis-à-vis googli-goo webs. Call Bonita 021 510 5997.
Karen Hansen experienced visual impact specialist for EIAS in Western Cape. www.visual-la.co.za
OWA Ceiling Systems Cape All materials for ceilings, drywalls, and insulation. Call 021 531 7511.
French lessons Learn to speak, read and write French in the greater Johannesburg area with a Sorbonne-degreed, native French speaker from Paris. Private or group lessons as well as corporate clients. Christine: 071 356 8279; christine@thefrenchpage.com
Art classes Creative sessions and drawing skills, during March, April and May. R250 per 3-hour class. R1400 for 7 week course. Children’s and adult’s classes held in Muizenberg. Contact: Meg Jordi 021 788 5974 or 082 926 7666; megjordi@gmail.com
Your unwanted frearms, left from deceased estates or simply a bother to keep? david.klatzow@mweb.co.za is looking for a variety of weapons to add to a forensic collection used for research.
Khanya Hospice Upper South Coast KZN. Please donate unwanted gifts, clothes, furniture and what-have-you-to-give away. We put these articles up for sale in any of our 3 Hospice shops to help sustain the free Nursing care that Hospice is offering. Email: hospice@scottnet.co.za or call 083 597 8985.
Bicycling Empowerment Network would love your old bicycles. Call 021 788 4174 or email Janine@benbikes.org.za
Rugby programmes and entrance tickets. Call Hymie 082 990 4705.
Jurgens Bekker Attorneys, Bedfordview Commercial and litigation; Call 011 622 5472; jurgens@jurgensbekker.co.za Lawyer.co.za is a new website for members of the public with extensive information about lawyers and the law in SA. Research the law, or find a law firm. Also available in Afrikaans at www.Prokureur.co.za
Please support poor primary schools and vocational education. University students are a privileged pampered elite.
The deadline is the 24th of the month, two months prior to publication.
Ads are prepaid at R200 plus VAT for up to 15 words, thereafter R15 per word plus VAT
Please note that multiple (long-term bookings) are now available online.
Boxed
are 6cm (1 column) wide, and are charged at R900 for the first 3cm and R250 per additional cm (length) plus VAT.
Payment is due within 30 days of invoicing
686
