HE GAZED across the conference room packed with reporters and took what appeared to be a brief meditative silence before raising his right hand and, with his elbow firmly on the table and emphasising every word, asked: “For how long must that revolving door remain closed?” [before it is opened for business].

It was the spring of 2003. Mac Maharaj had just been “cleared” after a “limited” FirstRand investigation into claims that he had been bribed by Schabir Shaik. Maharaj appeared on top of his game.

He said he was not “crushed” but was “pushed to a 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.”

The veteran politician and master strategist of the ANC’s mobilisation campaign, Operation Vula, had projected himself as a victim in a society with a dearth of policies that informed proper conduct. Maharaj came across as perhaps a little too cocky.

For weeks, he had been under a cloud and his reputation had taken a knock as claims of bribery swirled around him. The FirstRand announcement was an opportunity to reclaim lost ground because the bank said it had found no evidence of bribery against him. “My reputation is the only legacy I have to bequeath to my children,” he intoned.

He complained about how his “good name” was being dragged through the mud. Maharaj spoke candidly about how he had spent his adult life fighting for freedom and of never having an opportunity to earn a salary to help his family.

When democracy dawned, he could only work as a minister for a limited five years – after this, he faced retirement. His official retort for the payments received from Shaik was that his wife, Zarina, had done consultancy work for the Durban businessman for which she was rewarded. Maharaj maintained Shaik never had cause to pay him for anything. But this argument is dismissed by investigators.

They believe Maharaj and Shaik allegedly used Zarina as a conduit to provide her husband with money in return for awarding two lucrative tenders to companies in which Shaik had sizeable stakes. The tenders related to the credit card-type drivers’ licence contract estimated at R650?million and the N3 tollroad contract which had injected R3 billion into the economy. In the time he was minister, Maharaj and his wife received a total of R598?000 from Shaik. This included two payments of R100 000 each which they have failed to explain.

But four years after Maharaj’s performance at the press conference, his most-valued possession – his reputation – is back in the mud. He and his wife now face fresh allegations for allegedly receiving money from Shaik in offshore accounts and have been interrogated by investigators. Key to their questioning is the R1.53 million deposited by Shaik into Zarina’s bank account.

Investigators also want to know the terms of an alleged loan of $200 000 (about R1.4?million) from Hamaid Baig and undisclosed payments from a charitable trust. If he still felt he needed to protect his legacy, Maharaj must now explain why he did not disclose the offshore account into which Shaik deposited money when all three are South African citizens with local bank accounts. Maharaj must explain why Shaik wrote cheques for Zarina in her husband’s name and why he cashed the cheques.

Maharaj refuses to speak to City Press about the offshore money. But he says in documents that Shaik paid his wife for consultancy work. When asked why some of the cheques for his wife were written in his name, Maharaj resorted to religious stereotyping. “I don’t know what goes on in Schabir’s mind when he writes the cheque(s).

I know only one thing, that he is a devout Muslim and probably likely to be more chauvinistic.” But therein lies the rub. The man Maharaj fingers for placing him in the eye of the storm and threatening to erode his proud record as a selfless freedom fighter is now in jail for 15 years for making corrupt payments to ANC deputy president Jacob Zuma.

The contrasts and similarities in the relationship that Shaik, at the time a budding businessman resorting to underhand tactics to expand his business, had with both men are interesting. Shaik paid for the school fees of Zuma’s children and a similar offer was made to Maharaj. He told Scorpions investigators he had declined. Shaik helped Zuma build a few rondavels at his KwaZulu-Natal homestead in Nkandla, the Maharajs used some of the money to pay the bond on their Hyde Park home. Shaik put Zuma on a retainer while the Maharajs had a huge amount paid into their Swiss accounts.

They did not disclose the amount to investigators when questioned about their dealings and earnings. While Zuma helped Shaik ward off threats to his business and ensured his directorship in Thompson CSF, Maharaj was the political head of a department from which Shaik pocketed multimillion-rand profits after the two contracts. If the state charges Maharaj, available information suggests the indictment may not be too different to that of Zuma which is in abeyance. Available data shows Shaik paid the couple for about five years and during Maharaj’s tenure as minister.

The payments stopped when he was no longer in office. In the case against Zuma, the state made much of “the ability of Shaik and his companies to afford the payments to Zuma, on the one hand, and Zuma’s need to receive the payments on the other, (as) important considerations in determining the nature and intent of the payments including whether they were corruptly given and received”. In Zuma’s case, the state has already proved that the payments were corrupt because Shaik sought to influence him to act in ways that protected and enhanced his business interests. When the case against Zuma is re-instated, the state is expected to show that Zuma had corrupt intentions when he received the money.

In Maharaj’s case, the state believes a flurry of payments, some of which he can’t explain, ahead of crucial decisions on who should get the drivers’ licence tender and the N3 contract, could be deemed as bribes. The state will also want to show that, as a result of payments to the Maharajs, he acted to advance Shaik’s business interests. The state already knows that Maharaj used his expertise on transport matters to evaluate the London Metro Police Fleet Management System and accordingly advised Shaik to make contact with former Safety and Security Minister Steve Tshwete to get him to agree to a tender.

Why has Maharaj not been arrested? The Scorpions are awaiting the word from Swiss justice officials to use evidence they have of Maharaj’s offshore dealings with Shaik. Those aware of Maharaj’s woes say his latest court battle against the Scorpions over the use of evidence gathered in his interrogation and court challenge of sections of the National Prosecuting Authority being unconstitutional, is a strategy to stop or delay his prosecution.

If the Swiss give the Scorpions the nod, it may spell doom for him. The waiting game is in full swing. It is only after the Swiss hurdle is cleared that we will know if Maharaj was acting as the victim when he asked how long the revolving door would remain closed. Only then will South Africans know whether he was influenced by money.

The money sometimes came in the form of cheques in his name. They were deposited in a bank account he shared with his wife for work she had done for Shaik when he had benefited handsomely from contracts in Maharaj’s department.

When all this is done, perhaps Maharaj will tell the nation the legacy he has bequeathed to his children and this country.

With acknowledgement to City Press.