Schabir Shaik, the arms entrepreneur implicated alongside Deputy President Jacob Zuma in a bribery scandal, was “explicitly warned” by Nelson Mandela not to misrepresent himself as doing business on behalf of the African National Congress.
That was not the only time Shaik was accused of pretending to be something he was not. The Mail & Guardian has established that Shaik resigned a lectureship after his academic qualifications were questioned and that he was barred from another academic institution for “examination irregularities”.
The M&G revealed last month that Zuma was being investigated by the Scorpions on suspicion he had asked a French arms company, Thomson-CSF/Thales, for a R500 000-a-year bribe related to the government’s multibillion-rand arms deal. Shaik was the alleged intermediary.
Zuma reportedly recruited Shaik into the ANC underground some time in the 1980s and still uses him as his personal financial adviser.
Zuma and Shaik have both denied the bribery allegations.
Mandela’s warning to Shaik is referred to in a letter written on an ANC letterhead by Mandela’s lawyer, Ismail Ayob. Addressed to the Malaysian high commissioner on September 29 1994, the letter said: “Mr Schabir Shaik has not been authorised by the ANC to represent our interests in Malaysia and we are shocked to learn that, despite the president’s explicit warning to him not to do so, he is continuing to misrepresent the ANC.”
Despite Mandela’s warning and further ANC investigations into Shaik, he was soon again at the side of Zuma and other luminaries on official travels to Malaysia and Russia. As late as this April Shaik accompanied Zuma to a conference on the financing of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad) in Senegal. Shaik’s lawyer, Reeves Parsee, told the that Shaik went along at the invitation of the Nepad secretary. The secretariat, headed by presidential adviser Wiseman Nkuhlu, promptly denied this.
Correspondence in possession of the M&G shows that at least some ANC members were unhappy about Shaik’s actions, specifically in Malaysia, a country with which the ANC and the government have close relations.
In 1994 one ANC-aligned businessperson wrote to ANC headquarters seeking clarity on Shaik’s status.
The letter was written after Shaik allegedly presented himself as “heading the ANC’s business task group with special focus on Malaysia and [said] that he would establish the conduit for funds from various initiatives to the organisation’s coffers”.
Shaik’s visiting card, the businessperson said, identified him as “executive director of the ANC treasury with responsibility for investments and projects”.
The businessperson claimed business deals were in danger of collapse because Shaik insisted that he be involved.
Another letter, dated 1995, refers to an internal ANC investigation into Shaik and “among other allegations, theft of monies intended for the ANC”. The outcome is not clear, though it is understood ANC insiders were surprised at Shaik’s apparent “rehabilitation” within the party.
Shaik’s academic career is equally colourful. Professor Brian Figaji, vice-chancellor of Peninsula Technikon, this week confirmed that in February 1986 Shaik resigned from his position as a lecturer in the electrical engineering department after questions were raised about his qualifications.
Figaji said that before Shaik was first appointed on a yearly contract a few years earlier, he had shown the interviewing panel a degree certificate in electrical engineering obtained from a Hawaiian institution. Despite repeated requests, he failed to provide them with a copy of the certificates. “We were sort of zooming in on that I think the heat became too much.”
And the Durban Institute of Technology has confirmed that Shaik was banned from its predecessor, the ML Sultan Technikon, four years later. Spokesperson Kiru Naidoo this week said: “Mr S Shaik, a masters diploma student in engineering, was brought before a disciplinary committee for examinations irregularities in June 1990. The examinations management committee ruled that the student be prevented from writing any examination at the technikon for a period of 12 months and that all papers written by the student in the June 1990 examination be declared null and void.”
Shaik did not return to ML Sultan after the ban.
Shaik’s lawyer this week refused to entertain questions, saying his instructions were that Shaik would only answer questions in person at his offices in Durban.
Related:
Zuma silent 13 December 2002
Zuma: The money trail 06 December 2002
An unShaikable friendship 06 December 2002
Deputy president denies allegations 29 November 2002
Scorpions probe Jacob Zuma 29 November 2002