There are new questions about links between the African National Congress, the presidency and the so-called anti-HIV/Aids drug Virodene.
This follows revelations that prominent businessmen close to the party have helped arrange funding to the controversial “research team” of Olga and Sigi Visser.
Weekend reports said that well-connected businessman Max Maisela channelled about R17-million between June 1999 and September last year into Virodene companies
Insiders tell the Mail & Guardian that Maisela and his partners in fact claim to have channelled twice as much.
Maisela does not deny arranging the funding, but, like others involved, refuses to disclose the ultimate source. Said an insider: “There’s been speculation that Max Maisela speaks for the ANC, but that I can’t verify.”
Sigi Visser this week claimed that Virodene — which has been secretly tested in Tanzania after human trials were banned in South Africa — was about to be proved successful in the fight against HIV/Aids.
Meanwhile, the companies involved in the venture are wracked by infighting. Recent court battles between the Vissers, formerly husband and wife, have included allegations of sexual high-jinks and alcohol abuse. In a separate matter, the original Virodene company, Cryo Preservation Technologies, is proceeding with an Appeal Court attempt to wrest back rights transferred to Virodene Pharmaceutical Holdings (VPH), founded in 1998 to pursue the original work.
Rapport said at the weekend that documents indicated R17-million was channelled via Maisela to Virodene Pharmaceutical Holdings and a related not-for-profit company, the Aids Research Foundation of South Africa. The Vissers corresponded with Maisela in his capacity as head of Negotiated Benefits Consultants (NBC).
NBC is a retirement fund consultant and administrator, jointly owned by Worldwide Africa Holdings — co-founded by presidential adviser Professor Wiseman Nkhuhlu — and Kopano ke Matla, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) investment company.
Maisela was on President Thabo Mbeki’s consultative council when the latter was still deputy president and is part of a group of businessmen widely regarded as close to Mbeki.
Virodene has been repeatedly dismissed as an Aids cure, with the Medicines Control Council (MCC) in December 1998 unanimously refusing to grant permission for human trials. The main ingredient is an industrial solvent, and serious questions have been raised about its toxicity.
Mbeki has in the past been a staunch supporter of the Virodene research, going so far as to personally broker an agreement in December 1997 when an earlier dispute arose between Virodene shareholders. The Mbeki-brokered agreement made provision for government intervention to support the project if necessary.
Internal company documents at the time suggested the ANC had been offered a 6% share in the Virodene company, but the party denied ever being aware of or accepting this offer.
Mbeki, well known for his unorthodox views on HIV/Aids, is not known to have recanted his support for Virodene research.
According to Rapport, documents show Olga Visser continued to write to President Mbeki long after Virodene was turned down by the MCC.
The paper said that in February 2000 she wrote giving him advice on the cholera epidemic. On April 23 this year Visser wrote a letter to Mbeki requesting advice because she was having problems continuing the research process. She asked to speak to him personally, though it is not known if he ever received or responded to the letter.
The indirect involvement of Kopano ke Matla has provided some embarrassment to Cosatu on the eve of a joint conference with the Treatment Action Campaign to promote an Aids treatment programme.
A senior Cosatu source said Maisela — who is also an investment consultant to Kopano — had made no effort to explain his actions to Cosatu: “He needs to explain to the public where he got that money and why he is spending it on a discredited initiative.”
However Maisela this week told the M&G that no NBC funds had been used and that he had acted in his personal capacity as a middleman between un-named funders and the Virodene project.
The M&G has established that another businessman with prominent ANC connections was also among those supporting Olga Visser. Well-placed sources said that Karim Rawjee, head of the Hoxies fishing group in Pretoria, was one of those who came to the rescue and provided a monthly grant to Visser. An “Al” Rawjee was brought in to run matters for a while.
Karim Rawjee was an associate of the late Joe Modise, as well as several ANC politicians from Mpumulanga. Rawjee could not be reached for comment.
Maisela has refused to identify his funders but this week told the M&G he had been approached in 1998 by two investors — Ngengelezi Mngomezulu and Joshua Nxumalo — who were struggling to raise money to invest in VPH. He said he had put them together with investors, but he referred further queries about their identity to Nxumalo.
Nxumalo this week declined to say who had provided the money, although he denied that his investors had any connection with the ANC. Nxumalo and Maisela’s hesitancy in identifying the ultimate “investors” was mirrored by another source, who said his/her life would be in danger if the investors thought they might be unmasked.
Nxumalo claimed he is hated by the ANC since a brief fraternisation with the National Party in the early 1990s. However the M&G has heard claims that Nxumalo was deployed by the ANC to the NP as a “mole”. Nxumalo, a former ANC military man commonly known as “General”, was identified in 1997 internal Virodene documents as a share beneficiary alongside the 6% allocated “to the ANC”. The documents said he was to get “1% for ANC introductions work”.
Nxumalo this week accused Sigi Visser of fraudulently transferring control of VPH away from his consortium — a claim Visser dismissed.
The M&G understands that VPH has, indeed, been a battleground between different interested parties. On the one side has been Maisela, Mngomezulu and Nxumalo, with presumably Olga Visser on their side. Sigi Visser seems to be the lead figure in an opposing group.
Insiders say that, “two or three months ago” Maisela demanded to know where the shares were, while Nxumalo claimed R35-million had already been provided to the company by the Maisela group. They were unhappy that a majority of shares seemed to have been transferred to Sigi Visser.
Fanning the dispute has been a personal battle between the Vissers, who were divorced in 1993 but co-habited until late last year. Their dispute twice reached the Pretoria High Court in November and December last year, with Olga first suing to evict Sigi, and Sigi then suing for joint custody of their four children.
In court papers they accuse each other of alcohol abuse — a company liquor account with a R50 000 running total is attached as evidence — and of sexually inappropriate behaviour including attempts to seduce colleagues and nude high-jinks. Olga Visser is accused of a liaison with a bodyguard, whom she admitted was close to her, but “not intimate”.
The court papers reveal both Vissers had company-funded bodyguards, which Olga Visser explained: “I in particular have received threats from unknown third parties who are on the face of it opposed to the development of Aids medication for reasons unknown to me.”
Sigi Visser also accuses his former wife of mental instability, and refers to a car accident in which she sustained brain damage.
Olga Visser in turn says that “due to his misbehaviour towards the company and myself” she had asked him to vacate her shared premises. The only reason she had tolerated him so long was “due to the sensitivity of the development programme of Virodene Pharmaceutical Holdings’ products”.