Zuma, key allies face graft probes after report on 'state capture'

Former South African president Jacob Zuma and key allies should be criminally investigated for involvement in systemic corruption and related charges, says the third report of acting Chief Justice Raymond Zondo, following over three years of hearings into 'state capture' graft.

Zondo's extensive report, running in four volumes to over 1,000 pages, was released late Tuesday after being handed to President Cyril Ramaphosa.

It heavily implicates Zuma and several key allies, plus other current and former government officials, as recipients of kickbacks, bribes and various illicit 'gratifications'.

There had been a pattern of corrupt dealings that also involved money laundering, fraud, and failure to report suspicious or unusual transactions that needed to be criminally investigated, the report adds.

The entire report focuses on the corrupt activities of a single private sector business, Bosasa, since renamed African Global Operations, which the report says had systematically bribed politicians, government officials, Zuma and many others.

It implicates one of Zuma's key allies, now largely out of power, the former Gauteng premier and cabinet minister Nomvula Mokonyane, as well as former ruling African National Congress (ANC) MP Vincent Smith and current ANC chair Gwede Mantashe, who is also the Energy minister, among others.

Still ‘analysing’ report

Mantashe said his legal team was still ‘analysing’ the report, but said in a press conference that he was taking the matter on judicial review.

Smith and several co-accused already face corruption-related charges, in part arising from testimony before Zondo's commission.

"The evidence revealed that corruption was Bosasa's way of doing business," says report bluntly.

"It (Bosasa) bribed politicians, government officials, President Jacob Zuma and others extensively. Bosasa and its directors and other officials simply had no shame in engaging in acts of corruption."

Much of the evidence against Bosasa came from its former chief operating officer, who fell out with the Bosasa boss, Gavin Watson, and effectively turned 'state's witness number one' in revealing in detail years of corrupt conduct by the company in obtaining and keeping government contracts, mainly to service prisons.

Watson, who referred to wads of cash payments made monthly to corrupt officials as "monopoly money" on a cellphone video secretly shot while such payments were being prepared, was on intimate terms with Zuma and a number of other ANC figures in power.

Zuma’s close friend

Watson enjoyed such a close friendship with Zuma that he considered himself "bulletproof", says the damning report.

The now deceased Bosasa chief executive, killed in a mysterious vehicle accident in 2019, had had quasi-paternal relationships with various ANC politicians’ children.

Current energy minister Gwede Mantashe eventually grudgingly acknowledged, in his testimony before Zondo, that Watson had been awarded the ''clan name'' of Radebe.

This is a singular 'honour', derived from Watson's refusal to support apartheid in any way during the 1980s and, subsequently, for his sustained financial support for both the ANC and an assortment of its leading figures, much of which the report finds to be corruption-related.

Bosasa chief operating officer Angelo Agrizzi, the first witness before Zondo's State Capture Commission, laid bare a vast network of corrupt dealings that allowed this private company, of which many South Africans had previously been barely aware, to effectively 'capture' an entire sector of government operations.

Self-incriminating evidence

Agrizzi, who was forced to admit from the stand that he was a 'racist', gave deeply self-incriminating evidence, testifying that he was both aware of, and involved in, many acts of corruption.

His candour before the Zondo commission was driven, he said, by a "near-death experience" after which he knew he had to "come clean".

He told the commission that there was no contract with the South African state won by Bosasa for which the company did not pay bribes.

The company earned over $800 million over 15 years using its system of monthly payments and kickbacks, favours and 'gifts' to influential ANC party members in senior positions in government as a key part of its method of winning and retaining lucrative tenders.

According to Agrizzi's evidence, as supported by documents and other evidence, specifically his "little black book" recording such payments, the company was paying between $250,000 and $400,000 per month in bribes.

Government business

The company had extraordinary reach into government business, running catering services, mining hostels, youth development facilities, and contracts for security, fencing, IT, training and transport services, plus involvement in fracking and water quality audits.

Watson and his brothers, who also ran the company, were described by corruption-accused MP Vincent Smith, in his commission testimony, as members of the "patriotic bourgeoisie" who sought to assist politicians and activists to "re-establish their personal lives" after years devoted to the struggle against apartheid.

But Zondo was not 'buying' that line, and this report, which has been rejected by Zuma as "not being worth the paper it is written on", is certain to add pressure to the public demand here that those responsible for 'state capture' corruption, which cost the country an estimated $65 billion, pay for their crimes.

Kickbacks

Zuma is already facing fraud, money-laundering and corruption charges on 783 counts for his role in allegedly receiving kickbacks from a late 1990s international arms deal.

Zondo's summation of the commission's findings is expected in two months, after the high court granted an extension last week to the commission for its concluding report on the full spectrum of 'state capture', as unveiled before Justice Zondo.