Justin Pearce
JOHN ASPINALL, right-wing zookeeper, multimillionaire gambler and friend of Mangosuthu Buthelezi, is eyeing KwaZulu-Natal as the site for his next casino.
This was confirmed by Lazelle Krog, the province’s director of policy and legislative development in gaming and betting.
Aspinall’s casino empire is based in London, with operations in France and New Zealand. Aspinall’s office had no comment on the matter of the KwaZulu- Natal casino bid. Aspinall has not yet announced his plans, which are still subject to approval by the provincial gambling board which will only be established towards the end of the year.
If Aspinall’s KwaZulu-Natal casino bid is successful, it will combine two of the man’s abiding passions: gambling and Zulus.
According to an interview in the London Financial Times earlier this year, Aspinall’s obsession with Zulu culture dates back to his childhood when he read the adventure novels of Rider Haggard, 50 years before he first visited Zululand. He remains firm in his belief that the Zulu nation is a noble one and the custodian of a threatened culture — in interviews in recent years he has portrayed the ANC as the greatest menace to the survival of the Zulus. This view has underpinned his financial support for the Inkatha Freedom Party, and he maintains a friendship with Buthelezi.
In the middle of the KwaZulu-Natal municipal election campaign in June this year, Buthelezi took time out to attend Aspinall’s lavish 70th birthday party in London.
The casino plan is not Aspinall’s first attempt to expand his business operations into his favourite South African province. Last year he was part of an unsuccessful bid to develop the Point area of Durban into a recreation area similar to the Cape Town Waterfront, a bid in which his close friends and fellow tycoons James Goldsmith and Kerry Packer were also involved.
A gambler since his student days at Oxford, Aspinall professes a philosophy of life which celebrates the irrationality of the gaming table.
“Reason is the worst possible guide to human affairs,” he was once quoted as saying. “It is merely the undertaker that you send in after the battle to explain the logic of the affair. Instinct and prejudice are much better guides.”
He combines support for right-wing causes with a dedication to the preservation of wildlife, and owns a successful zoo in Kent in south-east England.
Aspinall is believed by some IFP leaders to have hired Ian Greer and Associates election consultants who ran the IFP’s local government campaign in KwaZulu-Natal. Greer’s company was reportedly paid more than R2-million for the campaign. When Greer and associates arrived in the province they were working with Brendan Bruce, who was former director of communications for former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher.