Bosasa ran the ANC’s election war rooms and paid for volunteers. (Delwyn Verasamy/M&G)
Bosasa, which specialised in providing services to the government, bribed civil servants, ANC politicians and prosecutors with monthly “retainers” to ensure that it raked in state tenders and that investigations into its activities were closed down.
Bosasa (now African Global Operations) also made sure that the ANC itself was well taken care of, picking up the tab for a variety of election events over more than a decade and providing the party a “war room’” for the 2014 elections.
Bosasa’s generosity towards the ANC — the subject of the third volume of the Zondo commission report handed to President Cyril Ramaphosa on Tuesday — didn’t end there.
In the report, Zondo said whistleblower Angleo Agrizzi, the former Bosasa chief operating officer, had given evidence that “large donations” had been given to the ANC top six, including a cheque for R12-million.
Agrizzi had been asked to provide further information and had responded that he had “asked the investigation team to pull the bank accounts for Bosasa so as to see the exact amount which may have been R8m, R10m or R12m”.
Zondo said evidence was led that a Bosasa delegation, headed by chief executive Gavin Watson, “was due to present this cheque to the top six”.
The cheque was “directed” to the ANC, rather than for cash, with Agrizzi testifying that he had to ensure that “the funds were in place so that the cheque would clear”. Bosasa received “T-shirts and some blankets” in lieu of the cheque.
“Agrizzi clarified that, when he referred to payments to the top six, he was not meaning payments to the individuals, but rather to the organisation, namely the ANC. Agrizzi accepted that his reference to the top six may not have been accurate in so far as
it may have been interpreted as meaning the individuals,” Zondo wrote.
A “reasonably well-organised network of well-placed, well-connected and powerful people whose loyalty was secured with financial incentives and bribes” was put together “to promote and protect the private interests of Bosasa by irregular procurement and practices to extract money from the State”.
Evidence of Bosasa paying for election activities had been challenged by the party’s former head of organising, Nomvula Mokonyane, who Agrizzi also implicated in receiving a series of personal payments and other benefits from the company.
Mokonyane had told the commission the relationship between Bosasa and the ANC was “a natural relationship of freedom fighters” and that the Watson family had always been “generous, even before Bosasa was there”.
Mokonyane had rejected Agrizzi’s evidence that she had asked Bosasa to pay for a number of ANC “election galas and lekgotlas” during a series of national, provincial and local elections.
Mokonyane had not denied that Bosasa supported the ANC and had pointed out that she did not think there was anything untoward about Bosasa supporting the ANC when it had government tenders.
Bosasa had funded a war room for Jacob Zuma’s presidential campaign at the ANC conference in 2012 in Mangaung and another for the national elections in 2014, the 2016 local government elections and “certain other elections”.
In 2016, Bosasa had set up a war room for the ANC at its Klerksdorp call centre, equipped with computers, phones, new video boards and ANC branding. It also provided ANC volunteers with accommodation, three meals a day and paid them, with the operation costing “millions and millions of rand”.
Bosasa also conducted local election operations for the ANC and provided it with software for tracking statistics, running the facility “with military precision”. The Mangaung operation lasted for two months while the national elections war rooms ran for three months at a time.
In his recommendations, Zondo said there should be an investigation to identify the ANC officials responsible for its existence and operation. “There is a reasonable prospect that further investigation in that regard will uncover a prima facie case.’’
ANC national chairperson Gwede Mantashe, who is among the party leaders who intend to take the report on review, told a media briefing on Wednesday that the party had made use of the Bosasa war room.
Mantashe served as ANC secretary general from 2009 until 2017.
“At the time we needed the war room. We used it and we fought those elections,” Mantashe said. “We needed a facility to fight elections, we found the Bosasa facility in Klerksdorp and we used it.”
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