A stony-faced Mac Maharaj presented himself as the paragon of virtue when he took the stand at the Hefer Commission of Inquiry on Monday morning and repeated his allegation that the National Director of Public Prosecutions Bulelani Ngcuka ”in all probability” had been an apartheid spy.
Maharaj said Mo Shaik — Ngcuka’s other main accuser before the Hefer commission — reported this to him in late 1989 or early 1990.
Maharaj told former judge Joos Hefer that Shaik was at the time in charge of the African National Congress’s intelligence operations within South Africa and rhat he had been coordinating the former liberation movement’s mass struggle within the country as commander of Operation Vula.
Maharaj had infiltrated South Africa illegally and was dependent on Durban-based Shaik’s security briefings to combat the ”permanent hazard” of government informers. At one stage, Maharaj wanted to contact the National Association of Democratic Lawyers (Nadel) and asked Shaik’s opinion on the matter.
Shaik warned it would be unsafe because a high-level source within Nadel was believed to have been informing for the apartheid security forces.
Maharaj testified that he felt uncomfortable about this warning because Shaik could give him no reasonable clues as to the identity of the suspected spy. Shaik therefore investigated the matter further.
During late 1989 or early 1990 Shaik concluded in a follow-up report to him that Ngcuka was ”in all probability” the agent operating within Nadel, Maharaj continued.
He added that he did not act against Ngcuka, but relayed the allegation to current Deputy President Jacob Zuma. Zuma was at the time overall head of ANC intelligence and worked outside the country.
Maharaj said he assumed that Shaik would also have sent the information on to Zuma through his own communication channels to the exiled ANC leadership.
Maharaj had received a ”polite” telephone call from Jovial Rantao, political editor at The Star newspaper, on July 31 2003, who asked him if he knew that the Scorpions were investigating him and his wife.
Maharaj said he had pressed Rantao to reveal his source. Rantao refused, but said that it had come from someone ”whom he had no reason not to trust”.
The former transport minister said he then telephoned Ngcuka, whom by chance was with the Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development, Penuell Maduna, in the Eastern Cape.
Maharaj said Ngcuka told him there was no truth in the rumours that his wife was being investigated by the Scorpions.
”He then handed the phone to the minister of justice who assured me there was no truth in the allegations,” said Maharaj.
Maharaj then asked Rantao when he had received his information, who replied that it had been in the last seven days. This led Maharaj to believe that his source was Ngcuka, who had apparently given an off-the-record briefing to black editors during this time.
Maharaj said later that he had cooperated with investigations ”because I remained confident that the two contracts that were being investigated did not have a tinge of corruption from my side”.
”What was being shredded was my integrity. I looked around with fresh eyes to what was happening. I saw what was happening to the deputy president and it was a mirror image of what was happening to me … I mean the methods, this virtual assassination. The deputy president is a man with whom I’ve fought in the trenches almost my whole life.”
Maharaj also accused Ngcuka of several abuses of power relating to the meeting with black editors that Ngcuka had called in July.
He told Hefer that Ngcuka had defamed him and his wife at this meeting by disclosing confidential information obtained during a Scorpions investigation relating to the elite unit’s larger inquiry into alleged bribery in the government’s controversial arms deal.
Maharaj further accused the head prosecutor of making ”derogatory racial statements about Indian South Africans” at the meeting, with personal reference to him (Maharaj).
The ANC’s counsel, advocate Steven Joseph, submitted a 500-page bundle of documents to the commission to support his client’s testimony.
This revealed that Maharaj had been keeping records and even transcriptions of relevant telephone conversations since rumours first surfaced that Ngcuka’s Scorpions were investigating him and his wife.
Corruption allegations against Maharaj followed a Scorpions raid related to their arms deal investigation at the premises of businessman Schabir Shaik.
Shaik’s seized records of payments resulted in allegations leaked to the media that Maharaj had received kickbacks during his ministerial tenure for state contracts awarded to Shaik.
Maharaj denied this again on Monday in his testimony before Hefer. He stated that the relevant payments were made to his wife for her work as a consultant to Shaik’s companies.
All the main role players in the spy saga attended Monday’s commission hearing in the Iustitia building in Bloemfontein. These included Ngcuka, Maduna, Maharaj, Shaik and journalist Ranjeni Munusamy. — Sapa