Publication: Independent Online Issued: Date: 2007-12-31 Reporter: Sapa

Did Shaik Fork Out for Zuma's Children?

 

Publication 

Independent Online

Date

2007-12-31

Reporter Sapa

Web Link

www.iol.co.za


Convicted fraudster Schabir Shaik and his companies are alleged not only to have paid the education fees of Jacob Zuma's children, but their allowances as well.

Attached to the indictment against the ANC president, filed in the Pietermaritzburg High Court, was a spreadsheet which detailed a list of 783 payments allegedly made by Shaik and his companies from October 25, 1995 to July 1, 2005, totalling R4,072,499.85.

The detailed spreadsheet, which had amounts as low as R25 - allegedly for a "mini car valet" - to the R400 000 paid allegedly for the "development of his traditional residential village estate in Nkandla", was attached to the indictment that was filed in the Pietermaritzburg High Court.

The indictment was filed on Friday, shortly after midday as Zuma was about to hand out presents to children in his home district of Nkandla.

Zuma faces 16 charges in total - one count of racketeering, two counts of corruption, one count of money laundering and 12 counts of fraud.

The 16-page spread sheet details several alleged payments made to Holy Family College, Sacred Heart School, University of Zululand, Empangeni High School, St Catherines, Cape Technikon and the International School of Cape Town.

The list classifies the alleged payments as "Zuma Children Education".

Apart from the alleged payment for school fees, payments were allegedly made directly to Zuma's children and were classified as "Zuma Children Allowance".

The list goes on to detail alleged payments to Bankfin for a Hyundai Sonata. It was classified at "Zuma Children Vehicle".

Another vehicle that fell under the same classification according to the spreadsheet is a Mazda Etude.

With acknowledgements to Sapa and Independent Online.



Shaik is also alleged to have made several dozen cash payments to Zuma himself. These mostly seem to be for amounts of R5 000, but the total R875 500,00.

Nice tax-free income - or so it was thought.

Actually, these payments are effectively emoluments due "Through his (Accused 1's) de facto shareholding in the Enterprise; (i.e. Nkobi Holdings)" [Para. 151. of the Indictment].

Now this is what I've been saying all along.

Zuma was an effective shareholder in ADS through Nkobi Holdings.

That is why there exists a special purpose vehicle called Clanwest Investments ((Pty) Ltd which owns some 10% of Nkobi Holdings equity and why Thomson-CSF's bribe of 500 kZAR per annum was limited in duration until ADS started paying dividends.

Now ADS had been just about bankrupt since the mid-1990s (inter alia because it had been pooped by Chippy Shaik and co) and was therefore unable to pay dividends until it was scooped by Nkobi Holdings through Thomson-CSF in 1998 (first 50%) and 1999 (second 50%) and then just had to wait for the advance payment from Armscor in the amount of R162 677 665 for the corvette combat suite which came on 5th May 2000.


The Theory of Pooping and Scooping

Poop an enterprise by crushing it financially until its owners sell it for a song whereby it is scooped, whereafter it is allowed to trade normally or even better.

Facts

Thomson-CSF/ADS received in 1999 the Corvette Combat Suite contract worth R2,599 billion in 1998 Rands.

Of this ADS's share was some R412 million and Thomson-CSF's share was a further some R600 million.

This was just one of ADS's many contracts and opportunities existing at that time.

Yet Altech sold ADS to Thomson-CSF in 1998/1999 for about R30 million.

Sorry, something just doesn't add up.

But no wonder Thomson-CSF used the highest officials in the land, i.e. the President and the Deputy President, to secure their slice of the Arms Deal pie.

Me thinks that the reason why Thomson-CSF was prepared to pay 500 kZAR per year for protection from the Arms Deal investigation goes far further than Zuma merely assisting Nkobi Holdings in getting its share of ADS.

This is corruption on a far grander scale, i.e. in the order of hundreds of millions of Rands, than the mere R4 million in payments from Shaik to Zuma and R1 million from Thomson-CSF to Zuma.

Then it would also seem that the R2,599 billion price for the Corvette Combat Suite was inflated by R300 million which would have been used to "compensate the locals".