Mac Maharaj will make Sunday breakfast for his family in his mini-mansion set on two hectares in Johannesburg's Hyde Park.

He will take on the chin newspaper reports of his shattered reputation following his resignation from FirstRand Group as a director. There is no money for lawsuits. In fact, how he will make a living remains unclear despite the R1,092-million payout from FirstRand Group that Maharaj says is not a payout but money owed him, which will go to tax and his lawyer.

In a press conference held in Braamfontein following his resignation on Thursday, Maharaj buoyantly assured the media that his working life was not over and that since all black people came from the gutters, survival was no problem.

"I will sell newspapers and flowers so that people like you can give me tips. I will become a truck driver or a petrol pump attendant."

Maharaj's CV shows that he has indeed worked as a petrol pump attendant and performed a variety of menial jobs before serving as secretary of the ANC underground from 1977 and becoming commander of Operation Vula, a secret mobilisation campaign under ANC president Oliver Tambo.

Maharaj draws on another of the one hundred cigarettes that are his daily fare and talks about ridding the Scorpions investigation unit of the cancer that he says is eroding it.

That he is not alone in his attack on the Scorpions was verified by yesterday's reports that Jacob Zuma, the deputy president has challenged the National Prosecuting Authority for intruding on his private relationships with several people whom he claimed had nothing to do with the controversial arms deal. The relationship of both Zuma and Maharaj with Durban entrepreneur Schabir Shaik has been the focus of the Scorpions' investigations.

Shaik is Zuma's financial adviser.

Maharaj is distinctly uncomfortable about "the grey areas" in a summary of a report issued by FirstRand of their investigation into his affairs. The investigation was a response to a report about Maharaj in the Sunday Times in February, leaked from the Scorpions. The Scorpions investigation of Maharaj has led to the subpoena of at least 60 witnesses. The report, which has not yet been made public and which was conducted for FirstRand by Deloitte & Touche and attorneys Hofmeyr, Herbstein and Gihwala, exonerated him of bribery and corruption during his term as transport minister from 1994-1998.

It showed inconsistencies - "poorly explained" payments made by Shaik to Maharaj but find no evidence that there was a link between the deposits and a contract given to Shaik's Nkobi holdings for the N3-Johannesburg toll road and for the national driver's licence contract.

Among the other areas of his financial history that the report failed to clarify was Maharaj's inability to answer questions about two R100 000 payments into a family-trust bank account, the Milsek Trust, in 1996.

In the dining room where their 19-year-old daughter celebrated her birthday on Thursday night, Maharaj and Zarina Maharaj, his wife, ponder the loss of reputation:

Maharaj: "My reputation is the only legacy I have to bequeath to my children."

Zarina: "This is hurtful and harmful but it is not breaking us one little bit."

Maharaj: "It did cause internal tensions in each one of us..."

Zarina: "But not to the point that we have been crushed, Mac."

Maharaj: "Not crushed, but pushed to the point where we are going to stand up. It does not matter what I do for an income. The important thing is to take on the Scorpions.

"I told you people yesterday, I am taking head space so that I can be a free man."

Maharaj claims that his defence is to demand that the Scorpions complete their investigation and answer the unanswered questions. But his defence appears to be that he and Zarina were so befuddled by their return from exile in 1994 that Zarina, the breadwinner, did not manage to keep their books.

None of this, nor Maharaj's repeated claims that he has given his life for the struggle are working towards healing the broken image.

Maharaj feels he is being targeted by the Scorpions. "They see him as vulnerable and do not expect a comeback. They think he has no political power," says Zarina.

Maharaj admits that he is bothered by the charges against him. As "a non-practising atheist" he is buoyed by the fact that he has at least been cleared of bribery. He looks " brutally "at his conscience and says he is open to change "where I have been at fault".

With acknowledgements to Maureen Isaacson and the Sunday Argus.