In August last year Metro manager Mike Sutcliffe instructed the municipal ombudsperson to investigate some of his senior managers, asking her to use lie detector tests if necessary. And he called in the National Intelligence Agency to check if members of staff were providing information to people who ”aim to subvert municipal policies”.
Sutcliffe’s crackdown was prompted by a Mail & Guardian story about how the Metro narrowly failed to enter into a R68-million office-rental agreement with a mystery trust.
Sutcliffe’s response to the leaks appeared excessive, given the fact that he claimed he himself initiated the decision to back out of the deal.
Now a possible reason for the Metro manager’s sensitivity has emerged: the fact that the undisclosed beneficiaries of the trust had past links to Deputy President Jacob Zuma and his financial adviser, Schabir Shaik. It is something Sutcliffe was apparently unaware of initially — and might have found politically embarrassing, given his perceived closeness to Zuma’s traditional political rivals in the ANC.
When he was touting the office-rental proposal to his managers last year, all Sutcliffe allegedly knew about the beneficiary of the deal was that it was something called the Yorker Trust, which had a 51% empowerment component.
Subsequently, the M&G established that this 51% beneficiary was a company called Halo Trading, led by two men, Shadrack Dladla and Lawrence Mazibuko.
Dladla, a former policeman, owned a small security company, KZN Security Services, that in 1998 bid for, but failed to secure, a contract with the city council.
Then Mazibuko, a former police bodyguard of Zuma, came on board, as did, allegedly, Zuma’s nephew Khula Zuma. Next time round, KZN’s bid was successful and the council contract has been rolled over ever since.
Dladla now angrily denies that Khula Zuma or the deputy president ever had anything to do with his company. But in his 2000 bid to provide bodyguard services to the council, Dladla himself listed Khula Zuma as a shareholder.
In 2001 Dladla and Mazibuko had established another company, Ba-lengwe Holdings, which is described on the company website as ”incorporating” KZN Security Services.
Among the founding directors of Balengwe was Schabir Shaik, who handles Zuma’s finances.
Company records show that after barely two months, Shaik resigned on October 19 2001. Asked about this, Dladla said he was a friend of Shaik’s and they had linked up for a specific deal that had fallen through.
Another explanation may be that 10 days before, on October 9, the Scorpions had launched their first raid on Shaik and his businesses. Asked about his involvement with Balengwe, Shaik refused to comment.
Zuma’s office said he had no financial interest in KZN Security or Balengwe Holdings, or with Mazibuko and Dladla, and could not be expected to account for the business dealings of former government employees — or those of people he might happen to know.