A team from the National Prosecuting Authority visited police national headquarters three weeks ago, seeking material that they thought might assist their investigation into the criminal syndicates surrounding Kebble murder accused Glenn Agliotti.
The Mail & Guardian was right: Oilgate, says the man at the centre of it, was a premeditated scheme to channel public funds to the ruling party. Sandi Majali’s confession that he conspired with the bosses of state oil company PetroSA to divert R11-million to the ANC — in his version, PetroSA masterminded it — leaves two years of official cover-up in tatters.
As the massive irregularities in the Nigerian presidential poll come into focus, it has emerged that South African companies were asked at the eleventh hour to print ballot papers that often did not reach polling stations in time. A local printer says it declined a request four days ahead of the poll to print the bulk of the presidential ballots.
The Mail & Guardian this week secured advance access to an extraordinary attempt to document the African National Congress’s (ANC) anti-apartheid struggle — as well as its devastating internal battles around the figures of its president, Thabo Mbeki, and its deputy president, Jacob Zuma. The vehicle for this penetrating exposé is a study of one of the movement’s most colourful and controversial figures: Mac Maharaj.
President Thabo Mbeki’s bid to broker a political settlement in Zimbabwe could be an uphill battle, given this week’s insistence by President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu-PF that there can be no talks before the opposition changes its ways. An official in the Zanu-PF’s information department said the thinking in the party is that ”elections are around the corner and people will do their talking through the ballot”.
Vodacom’s connectivity — the cellphone group’s habit of choosing politicians and their friends as business partners — extends to two more of its operations on the continent. Vodacom defended its choice of partners, saying that in Africa it was “the norm” to have participation by “governments, parastatal bodies, public investment institutions, political parties, trade unions, empowerment groupings and government officials”.
Vodacom has made Mozambican President Armando Guebuza a shareholder of its subsidiary operating that country’s second cellphone network. While Vodacom avoided referring to Guebuza when it announced the deal three weeks ago, the Mozambican media soon outed him, sparking debate about the first citizen’s conflicts of interest.
Communications Minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri has moved to remove South African Post Office CEO Khutso Mampeule, dubbed “Mr Clean” for his robust campaign against procurement sleaze. Mampeule’s cancellation of contracts at the parastatal, among them a controversial R100-million deal to revamp branches, earned him powerful enemies and soured relations with his board.
Arbitrators have dismissed a claim by the SA Post Office for the return of R31-million it believes it overpaid on a project to revamp branches, saying the parastatal had only itself to blame. The arbitration ruling accentuates the breakdown of corporate governance at the post office — an issue also tackled by Communications Minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri.
The state has hit back at John Stratton’s attempt to prevent his extradition from Australia to stand trial alongside Glenn Agliotti for the murder of Brett Kebble. Last month Stratton launched an urgent application in the high court in Pretoria to prevent the National Prosecuting Authority from lodging an extradition application with Australian authorities.