Ann Eveleth
THE creation this week of black-owned Khulani Springbok Patrols consummates a long-standing relationship between the Inkatha Freedom Party and a 35-year-old family security business.
Security industry sources said this week the sale by the Bartmann family of a R50- million interest in Springbok Patrols to IFP-aligned Khulani Holdings – and the appointment of former IFP KwaZulu-Natal finance MEC Johnny Mhlungu as executive charman of the joint venture – was an effort by the company to retain its dominant position in the security industry.
The sources say Springbok was the target of a number of pointed remarks at a meeting this week between security companies and members of the KwaZulu-Natal Cabinet.
Provincial education minister Prince Vincent Zulu was also questioned about allegations that his wife worked for the new company. The sources say Zulu replied that “people who are not employed by the government can work wherever they like”.
Springbok founding owner Mick Bartmann said last week the purpose of the sale was to support “the upliftment of the disenfranchised”. But security sources say Springbok acted after losing a number of contacts.
Zulu royal family sources said the company was also trying to get the family to endorse Khulani Springbok.
Springbok has been dogged by controversy in recent years, stemming from submissions to the Goldstone commission and National Intelligence Agency (NIA) reports saying that the company was linked to train violence, that it trained Inkatha youth and that it employed members of IFP self- protection units (SPUs).
A report on security companies released by the Network of Independent Monitors (NIM) in 1996, said that Springbok’s then KwaZulu-Natal general manager Gavin Ainsworth was an IFP leader who would “employ only IFP members”.
The report said IFP Youth Brigade leader Mbongeni Khumalo told the Goldstone commission in 1992 that he was hired by Ainsworth to establish a training base at Mandini, but the base never materialised.
Springbok guard Zola Mathike subsequently told an inquest into train violence at Mlamankunzi Station on the Reef that he shot and killed two people during a November 1992 incident. Springbok later issued a report that Mathike had killed one person and injured another.
And according to a 1993 City Press report, former Springbok shooting instructor Johannes Smit said in an affidavit that he trained IFP members in the use of lethal weapons at the company’s training centre in Vereeniging.
Bartmann, who is to remain as deputy chairman of Khulani Springbok, denied the allegation at the time, saying Smit invented the story after being fired. Bartmann also told the press last week that Goldstone had cleared the company of the other charges.
In June 1991, Bartmann and Springbok patrols were convicted in the Johannesburg regional court of unlawful possession of 707 firearms in the period 1986 to 1989, but in a 1995 appeal the charges were reduced to failure to report the loss of firearms.
More recently, according to a 1995 NIA report on violence in Durban and Johannesburg, cited in the NIM report, Springbok hired unemployed Inkatha SPU members. Inkatha trained at least 8 000 SPU members before the 1994 elections. The NIA report also alleged that Springbok provided military training to disaffected SPU, IFP and Umkhonto weSizwe soldiers in Swaziland.
Springbok has several lucrative contracts with South African parastatals, including Spoornet. Independent auditors looking into security contracts allege that Springbok has a practice called short-posting, in which the company is paid for workers who do not turn up for shifts.
The company has had numerous contracts with the provincial government of IFP-ruled KwaZulu-Natal. The provincial finance department could not provide a list of contracts this week.
Among the contracts was a three-month non- tendered contract in mid-1996 to provide armed guards to 87 schools in KwaMashu and Umlazi after attacks on teachers and students. Springbok lost the lucrative contract – it had an estimated monthly value of R500 000 – when formal tenders were taken, but then got a smaller piece of the action when the provincial education ministry divided the contract between several firms.
The Mail & Guardian has learned that Springbok lost its portion of the contract after local communities complained.
Mhlungu resigned from the provincial government in 1996 to pursue “business interests” after it was revealed that he and several family members held shares in Khulani, which had an interest in gambling consortium African Sun International. Mhlungu’s department controlled the province’s gambling portfolio at the time.