Publication: Business Day
Issued:
Date: 2008-12-06
Reporter: Hajra Omarjee
|
Pikoli Saga Drawing to a Close |
The final chapter in the Vusi Pikoli saga will be written
next week when President
Kgalema Motlanthe announces his decision on the future of the suspended National
Prosecuting Authority (NPA) head.
Because Pikoli is expected to resign from
office if reinstated, Motlanthe will have to find his
replacement quickly, given the explosive
relationship between the NPA and the African National
Congress (ANC) because of its intention to prosecute the party’s president,
Jacob Zuma.
The NPA has appealed against the Pietermaritzburg High Court’s decision to drop
corruption charges against him.
The Presidency and the ANC would not be drawn on Friday on the outcome of the
Frene Ginwala inquiry into Pikoli’s fitness to hold office. This follows several
media leaks suggesting that former president Thabo Mbeki — who removed Pikoli
from office in September last year — has been absolved of any wrongdoing.
The Ginwala report has not yet been released by the Presidency, and the leaks
suggest there are attempts to ease the pressure on Motlanthe to make a decision.
The Mail & Guardian reported on Friday that Ginwala had cleared Mbeki of “abuse
of executive power” because she rejected
Pikoli’s contention that Mbeki had suspended him to derail
the investigation of national police commissioner Jackie Selebi.
Motlanthe’s handling of the Pikoli matter will be his first major public
challenge since taking office in October. He was installed following the ANC’s
decision to axe Mbeki, after Judge Chris Nicholson’s finding that the executive
had interfered in the NPA’s investigation of Zuma.
Zuma is the ANC’s presidential candidate for next year’s general election.
Acting NPA head Mokotedi Mpshe has been in a
running battle with the ANC
since taking office, following several controversial media interviews.
In an SABC interview days after Zuma’s election, Mpshe announced the ANC
president’s impending arrest. Mpshe also earned the ANC’s wrath last month
following an interview in City Press in which he criticised Nicholson’s
judgment.
Motlanthe is under even more political pressure, after being censured by the
ANC’s national working committee over the cabinet’s continued support for
Mbeki’s legal action to try to overturn the Nicholson judgment.
Motlanthe must also handle the Pikoli matter as the ANC is selecting candidates
for its lists for next year’s election. While Zuma is the ANC’s presidential
candidate , Motlanthe must win the support of ANC branches if he wants to be
number two on the ruling party’s list of candidates .
Motlanthe must accept or reject Ginwala’s findings, either in part or in full.
He also has the task of charting the way forward for the NPA.
Pikoli has been offered a job at Mvelaphanda Holdings, headed by businessman
Tokyo Sexwale.
He told Business Day in June that the offer was something he was considering
seriously, but he wanted to clear his name
first*1.
With acknowledgements to Hajra Omarjee and Business Day.
*1 Unlike this predecessor whose name is forever sullied for
:
- being part of a triumvirate of stooges assisting Thabo Mbeki and his
MINCOM whitewash the entire Arms Deal Investigation;
- making the dopiest deal of all time along with his equally assenine
friend Dr Penuell Maduna in withdrawing charges against Thomson-CSF and
Alain Thetard, two of the world's more serious and problematic criminals *4;
- interfering in the Thomson-CSF part of the Arms Deal by the
investigative arm of the French judiciary to such an extent that it ceased
its investigation after having made and extremely good start on it *2;
- thinking that he was assisting his boss Thabo Mbeki and his political
party the ANC in not charging Jacob Zuma for bribery and corruption despite
there being the most enormous body of prima facie evidence.
*2 This was clearly to protect his boss Thabo Mbeki who was
clearly and unlawfully up to his fishy *3 gills with this French merde.
*3 But got busted by The Fishers of Corrupt Men, a founder
member of whom is The Gentleman Litigant.
*4 Remember the Taiwanese La Fayette frigate deal where
Thomson-CSF was prima contractor and Alain Thetard was one of its chief
smoothers based in Taiwan.
The Taiwanese government has proven that the deal involved about US$0,52 billion
in bribes on a US$3,0 billion contract (close as dammit to the infamous 15%).
This bribery deal is dwarfed only by British Aerospace's Al Yam deal in Saudi
Arabia.
Alain Thetard came straight from Taiwan to South Africa to take over as Thomson-CSF's
local delegate from Pierre Moynot.
It is also well worth remembering that the Taiwanese Navy's frigate Project
Officer Captain Yin Chin-feng was found drowned, floating face downwards in
Taipei Harbour.
He is one of 11 persons linked to Thomson-CSF and its dirty deals in Taiwan and
elsewhere to have died in mysterious circumstances in recent times.
Captain Yin
Ching-feng, project officer of the
La Fayette frigate acquisition by the Taiwan Navy from Thomson-CSF and
French Naval shipyard DCN, was killed on 8 December 1993 and his body found
floating in Taipei's harbour.
Jacques Morisson,
a former French Thomson-CSF representative in Taipei,
fell out of the window of his apartment
4 June 2001. According to The Taipei Times, Morisson was the
fifth French person
involved in the La Fayette case who has died in an odd fashion.
Last October, Thierry Imbot,
the son of a former French intelligence chief who was in Taipei from 1989-94
as a "special officer" of the French Institute in Taipei, died after he
fell from a building in
South Africa.
In March 2001, Thomson-CSF Japan's general manager
Jean-Claude Albessard
also passed away under mysterious circumstances, as he died from a "sudden
cancer."
According to Christine Deviers-Joncour, ex-mistress to former French
foreign minister Roland Dumas, two
other parties responsible for
money laundering in the La Fayette case were killed in a
mysterious car accident
in South Africa.
Chief Inspector Dharmendra Jugoo,
of the Economic Crimes Office of the Mauritius Police, died *5 in October
2004 (just before he could have been called to give evidence in the ongoing
trial).
Other Arms Deal related persons who have died in
South Africa
:
- Joe Modise
(
sudden cancer);
- Richard Charter
(
mysterious canoeing accident);
- Mhleli "Paul" Madaka
(
mysterious car accident)
;
- Bheki Jacobs
(
sudden cancer);
- January Masilela
(
mysterious car accident).
Be scared, be very scared.
*5 This was also sudden. Was it also a
sudden cancer?