The ANC attempted to end a Scorpions investigation into corruption in the province and instead deal with the matter ‘internally’
Justin Arenstein
Former Mpumalanga premier Mathews Phosa’s allegations about a plot to discredit him in top political circles look set to backfire after a key witness dramatically retracted his affidavit this week. The retraction came amid suggestions that Deputy President Jacob Zuma had attempted to quash criminal investigations into Phosa’s associates.
The witness, staunch Phosa ally and disgraced African National Congress youth leader James Nkambule, “confessed” this week that he was put under pressure by Phosa and his associates into making an affidavit that falsely supported allegations of a conspiracy against the former Mpumalanga premier.
Nkambule alleges in a seven-page confidential report and a separate five-page affidavit to the ANC presidency that Phosa summonsed him to a meeting in Pretoria on February 10 and ordered him to sign a damning statement alleging that senior party officials had plotted to smear and sideline Phosa.
The alleged plot against Phosa included the manufacture of “lies” that led to the arrest by the Scorpions three weeks ago of Phosa’s former special adviser and confidant, Pieter Rootman, on charges of donor fraud involving R1-million.
Nkambule contends that the affidavit given to him by Phosa was drafted by Rootman and merely handed to him for his signature. Zuma allegedly telephoned Rootman in Nkambule’s presence to establish if Nkambule was prepared to put his name to it.
Zuma dodged questions on the incident over the past week. He also declined on Saturday last week to explain his role in other apparent attempts to dismiss criminal fraud charges against Rootman.
Zuma met former Mpumalanga finance MEC Jacques Modipane and provincial legislature speaker William Lubisi last year for a briefing on the evidence against Rootman. Lubisi insisted on Thursday that he could not recall the meeting at the upmarket White River home of armoured vehicle manufacturer Nora Fakude. But Modipane confirmed the “informal” discussions.
“We briefed him on the province and he then asked about Rootman, so I informally explained the case and evidence. I think Rootman was trying to meet him or something,” said Modipane.
Zuma is understood to have written a letter shortly afterwards urging that the Scorpions investigation be dropped so that the ANC could deal with the matter “internally”.
The letter forms part of a concerted campaign to derail criminal investigations against Rootman by elements within the ANC. Senior provincial ANC leaders and legislature members secretly met Rootman as early as December 1999 to negotiate dropping charges in return for his silence.
The negotiations eventually resulted in a secret agreement in April last year stating that “all legal actions and criminal charges undertaken by both parties would be unconditionally withdrawn with immediate effect”.
The terse three-paragraph agreement also pledged that a damning auditor general’s report on Rootman’s alleged misuse of donor funds would be shelved and no remedial action would be taken.
The agreement was co-drafted by provincial ANC secretary general Solly Maseko and signed by senior ANC legislature caucus member Boy Nobunga. Phosa’s successor, Premier Ndaweni Mahlangu, disavowed the pact, however, when handwritten copies of the agreement marked for his attention leaked to the press.
Zuma, meanwhile, also refused on Wednesday to answer questions about Rootman’s alleged use of stolen donor funds to pay off Zuma’s house bond in March 1998, just days after he was taken to court for failing to repay a R120000 overdraft on the bond.
Investigators are probing allegations that Rootman allegedly helped settle Zuma’s debt with funds, donated by Ingwe Coal for capacity building in Mpumalanga, which he allegedly embezzled.
Zuma refused on Thursday morning to explain his role in a contentious company that played a key part in Mpumalanga’s R25-billion Dolphin deal. The deal involved the commercialisation of 35 of Mpumalanga’s game parks for 50 years without treasury or ministerial approval.
Zuma’s representative, Lakela Kaunda, said from Nigeria, where the deputy president is on a state visit, that she was unable to comment on whether Zuma was a “sleeping partner” in Corridor Development Corporation (CDC).
Zuma launched the company at a glitzy ceremony at the Royal hotel in Pilgrim’s Rest in Mpumalanga in 1996, after he was flown in by Air Excellence, which the Mail & Guardian previously exposed as a front company secretly owned by local politicians.
The M&G reports sparked a special auditor general report, which slated the provincial administration and the Mpumalanga Parks Board (MPB) for repeatedly using Air Excellence when cheaper alternatives existed. Most of the charters involved flying Dolphin Group executives around the province at taxpayers’ expense.
Nkambule contended this week that Zuma’s flight to CDC’s launch was also paid by the MPB. Air Excellence’s shareholding, which included Modipane, controversial former environmental affairs MEC David Mkhwanazi, former South African ambassador to Mozambique Mangisi Zitha, and former MPB chief Alan Gray, is being probed by the Scorpions and a separate Gobodo Forensic Auditors team.
The probes form part of a series of in-depth national investigations into links between corruption and politicians in Mpumalanga.
CDC was the only private sector company invited to send two senior directors on Mpumalanga’s funding mission to the Dolphin Group.
CDC’s Karim Rawjee and Sean McMurray accompanied Nkambule, ANC provincial treasurer Johannes ka Shabangu, Gray and various government officials on the trip to Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Kenya and London.
McMurray later sold his Royal and Promenade hotels to Dolphin, while Shabangu took a R50000 kickback from Dolphin on “behalf of the ANC”.
Gray alleged in a 43-page sworn statement to the ANC in September 1996 that CDC and Air Excellence were part of a shady network of front companies set up with taxpayer funds for local politicians and their nominees.
Phosa has repeatedly denied knowledge of the deals, but was accused of playing a crucial role in the Dolphin scandal during closed hearings before the ANC’s Maphisa commission in 1999.
The commission has refused to release its full report, but publicly recommended that Phosa and other senior provincial leaders be axed because they were guilty of autocratic and divisive conduct.
Phosa and Rootman insist the Maphisa commission evidence was fabricated to smear and remove Phosa from public office after the charismatic provincial leader became a political threat to Thabo Mbeki.
Phosa and Rootman claim to have in excess of 40 sworn affidavits, including Nkambule’s statement, proving that senior party members had been forced or bribed into lying both to police and to the Maphisa commission.
Phosa also threatened to release additional “explosive” evidence against party leaders and government officials, and named Secretary of Defence January Masilela, Mpumalanga MEC for Safety and Security Steve Mabona and MEC for Economic Affairs Jacob Mabena as key players in the alleged plot. He threatened to sue the three for R20-million for defamation for their statements to the Maphisa commission.
A second affidavit supporting Phosa’s allegations of a plot against him by disgruntled senior provincial government director Joe Magagula implicates Mabona in the campaign to discredit Phosa.
Magagula said his one-page statement was also drafted by Rootman, but had to be toned down before he would sign it.
A third affidavit by Maseko substantiates Nkambule’s first statement supporting Phosa’s allegations of a plot against him. But it cannot be tested because Maseko died unexpectedly from a diabetes-related ailment just after Christmas. Maseko was a founding director of Cross Business Functions, which Rootman joined as a director in February last year.
Neither Phosa nor Rootman was willing to comment this week, and their attorney Nardus Grove instead urged African Eye News Service and reporter Justin Arenstein to desist from reporting on anything to do with Phosa, Rootman or their former government representative Oupa Pilane pending the outcome of an earlier civil defamation case.
ANC representative Smuts Ngonyama, meanwhile, insisted this week that the Maphisa commission report “belonged to the ANC” and would not be released despite containing serious criminal allegations against elected politicians and government officials.
African Eye News Service has formally requested the South African Human Rights Commission to intervene and order the report’s public release in terms of the public’s constitutional rights of access to information. African Eye News Service