Stefaans Brmmer
Gauteng Premier Mathole Motshekga shares a business empire with an apartheid-era military intelligence agent who was also a key backer in Motshekga’s bitterly contested campaign last year for the provincial throne.
Abel Rudman’s military intelligence cover was blown in 1991 when the then Weekly Mail revealed that an anti-African National Congress newspaper he ran in Botswana was a military propaganda project funded by the apartheid state. Since then Rudman has never been far from trouble.
Motshekga’s business relationship with Rudman spans a planned R250- million Northern Province resort development and ventures in farm produce and information technology.
Rudman has acted as an informal adviser to Motshekga, and gave him R50 000 during the messy contest for the provincial ANC chair. Auditors Coopers & Lybrand chanced on evidence of the payment during a probe last August into Rudman’s management of an information-technology firm. Rudman was dismissed after a disciplinary committee found him guilty of mismanagement. A final order for the liquidation of the firm, Vantage Multimedia Communications, was granted last November.
Motshekga was installed as Gauteng premier in January, but his reign has been marred by allegations about past conduct. An ANC inquiry partially cleared Motshekga last week, but made scathing findings about his administrative capabilities. It left allegations that he spied for the apartheid state unresolved. The inquiry also recommended Motshekga break his relationship with Andr Thomashausen, a link-man for the Mozambican former rebel movement Renamo.
The ANC’s national working committee this week accepted the commission’s recommendations, but the Rudman connection could prove even more controversial in ANC circles. Rudman this week acknowledged a close friendship, which he said started in the 1980s, but denied business partnerships and said he “cannot remember” a campaign donation.
He joined the former South African Defence Force in the mid-1960s and served as a soldier until at least the mid-1980s. By 1990 he appeared a respectable businessman with interests in frontline states, including Botswana, where he was in business with Basimanyana “Piet” Masire, brother of then-Botswana president Quett Masire. He bought Magnum Printing and Publishing in Gaborone and started publishing the weekly Newslink in 1990.
Newslink folded in December 1991 when its military backing, and Rudman’s continued association with the South African military, could no longer be denied. More details emerged in early 1994 when Rudman sued the South African government for R12-million, claiming he had been short-changed when the project wound up. So far, he has not won a cent from the state, but he claims an appeal or arbitration is pending.
A secret army document, dated March 9 1989, lists Newslink’s advantages as, for example, “a means of subtly influencing the thought process and perceptions of the people in Botswana, ie the ANC negative/RSA positive”; “information and intelligence gathering”; and “an alternative to the New World Order”.
Around 1993 an associate of Rudman, film-maker Donovan van Wyngaard, started working on a documentary on the legendary “rain queen”, Makope Modjadji, sovereign of the Lobedu people near Tzaneen. He identified the tourist potential: centuries-old ruins, a cycad forest and the queen’s royal kraal. By 1996 Rudman and his company, Ethnic Development and Productions (EDP), were in negotiation with Queen Modjadji and her royal council for rights to develop a tourist resort.
By early last year, EDP was making plans for a hotel, guest houses, health hydro, museum, and amphitheatre at the ruins and a conference centre. A casino was also being discussed. Ernst & Young was contracted to find investors.
But while the queen and her council appeared co-operative, a community body, the Lebjene Cultural Club, made allegations against Van Wyngaard, by then a co-director in EDP. The allegations appeared based on Lobedu community fears that it would not benefit from the commercialisation of its cultural heritage.
Moshakge Molokwane of the Lebjene Cultural Club this week told the Mail & Guardian that Motshekga, a Lobedu and then a practising lawyer, was asked to represent the community and safeguard its interests against EDP and Rudman. Motshekga took up this brief around June last year, the same month the Gauteng election battle started.
Unbeknown to the Lobedu community, Motshekga was close to Rudman and EDP, from whom he was supposed to shield the Lobedu. By July an EDP employee, Kelly McLean, was doing secretarial work for Motshekga’s Transformation Forum of Africa-SA (Traforma-SA), a think-tank and activist group that concentrates on matters of “African renaissance”.
Although he holds no executive position, Motshekga is the leading figure in Traforma-SA and it backed him during his election campaign, attacking the ANC for “the potential rise of undemocratic forces” when it became clear the party establishment was against Motshekga.
It held an “African renaissance” conference in Johannesburg on September 23 and 24, days before Motshekga’s election. Deputy President Thabo Mbeki declined an invitation to act as keynote speaker.
Since then, Traforma-SA has thrown several parties for Motshekga, including his inauguration celebration and a gala function to mark the opening of the provincial legislature in February.
On January 27, a week after Motshekga’s inauguration, Rudman changed the name EDP to Kara Cultural Development at Motshekga’s request. “Kara” is the name of a philosophical discipline that concentrates on Africa as the cradle of humankind, of which Motshekga is the prime local exponent. In the 1980s he had a following of Kara “disciples” in townships and at Unisa, where he was researcher and lecturer.
New letterheads showed the newly named company’s head office as 50 Tonetti Street, Halfway House – the same as that of Motshekga’s law partnership, Meltz Le Roux Motshekga Incorporated.
New directors were listed as Rudman, Paul Havinga (a lawyer and old associate of Rudman’s who is well-known for his work for apartheid military operatives), one John Motsoenyane and Phillip Ragolane (an associate of Motshekga’s who assisted and represented Motshekga during negotiations “on behalf of” the Lobedu community).
The M&G has evidence that by January a trust connected with the Motshekga family had shares in Kara Cultural Development. During negotiations with black empowerment company Umnotho weSizwe Investment Holdings to invest in the Modjadji resort, talk on new share arrangements included reference to shareholding by this trust.
Umnotho director Solly Phala this week said the company was still evaluating its possible involvement in the development. He said an investment of more than R250-million was being considered.
Phala said he was aware the word “Kara” came from Motshekga, but denied knowledge of the premier holding a physical stake. The M&G has established that Motshekga was involved in negotiations between Kara Cultural and Umnotho as late as February, well after he was inaugurated as premier.
Interestingly, a key mover on the Umnotho side has been Richard Bluett, another former military man who hit the headlines in 1994 when he failed to pay for a hunting trip on which he had taken two generals, including Georg Meiring, outgoing chief of the defence force.
Bluett eventually paid the R30 000, but was soon at the centre of new controversy when he was given diamond-prospecting rights in the Madimbo corridor, previously restricted military land between the Kruger National Park and Zimbabwe. Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism Pallo Jordan eventually cancelled the prospecting rights after an environmental outcry that pitted Jordan’s predecessor, Dawie de Villiers, and former minister of mineral and energy affairs Pik Botha against each other.
Meanwhile, the Kara empire grew. On October 28 last year Motshekga registered the company Kara Agricultural Products, with himself as sole director. This created a vehicle for another envisioned multi-million-rand project in the Tzaneen area: a processing plant to extract oil from farm produce. Both Ragolane and Rudman have played a role in this endeavour.
On February 25 Rudman registered Kara Interactive Solutions, an information technology company that specialises in multimedia products that he has marketed to provincial governments for a number of years. He registered the new company after Rudman was fired from Vantage when a disciplinary inquiry found him guilty of mismanagement – charges Rudman this week maintained were baseless.
The disciplinary hearing followed an investigation last August by auditors Coopers & Lybrand – the probe which chanced upon the R50 000 cheque to Motshekga. When Coopers & Lybrand queried the cheque, it was told it had been a “marketing expense” that formed part of payments in terms of a joint venture in which Motshekga was involved.
This week, Rudman gave a different explanation, saying it could have been payment for legal work by Meltz Le Roux Motshekga Incorporated. He said he “could not remember” making a campaign donation to Motshekga. Two well-placed sources confirmed talk of a R50 000 campaign donation.
Northern Province officials this week confirmed a casino licence application from the planned Modjadji resort remained a possibility, but said nothing has been lodged. The proposed application could create an embarrassing situation for Motshekga, as the Northern Province Casino and Gaming Act bans political office bearers’ involvement in bids.
Rudman this week acknowledged his companies were named Kara after Motshekga’s philosophical ideas, but denied any business partnership. He said he knew Motshekga from the 1980s – “We met each other in the course of our wanderings” – and that they became good friends. The friendship was renewed when they ran into each other when he (Rudman) got involved in the Modjadji project.
Rudman claimed he joined the ANC in 1990, and that he also formed friendships with former Gauteng premier Tokyo Sexwale, North West Premier Popo Molefe and Cyril Ramaphosa.
He claimed there was no contradiction between his membership of the ANC and his involvement with the anti-ANC journal, saying he had been “tricked” by the military. “I have nothing to hide. If Mathole has something to hide, that is his business.”
Motshekga was unavailable for comment owing to a prior commitment to attend a business breakfast.