| Publication |
Mail & Guardian |
| Date | 2012-12-07 |
| Reporter |
Sam Sole, Stefaans Brümmer |
| Web link | www.mg.co.za |
Here are the people the auditors' report
identifies as having paid more than R7-million
to benefit Jacob Zuma between 1995 and 2006.
Schabir Shaik – R4 072 500
Schabir Shaik is one of the band of brothers
that included ANC underground operatives Moe and
Yunis – who served under Jacob Zuma in ANC
intelligence – and younger sibling Chippy, who
occupied the pivotal
position of chief of defence acquisitions
during the arms deal.
Prior to democracy, Shaik had been involved in
the covert management of ANC funds, which gave
him an introduction to the party's
then-treasurer, Thomas Nkobi.
After 1994, both Nkobi and Shaik were proponents
of the Malaysian Bumiputera model, a concept
that entailed the establishment of businesses
aligned with a political party.
When Nkobi died in September 1994, Shaik found
himself shut out by the ANC hierarchy.
In May 1995 Nkobi's successor, Makhenkesi
Stofile, wrote to Shaik telling him that, after
a meeting with ANC officials, he was considered
to "have no position within the ANC" and Stofile
had been instructed to cut off communication.
The KPMG report notes: "It is during this time
when the name of Zuma started surfacing in
documents at our disposal … Shaik ceased to act
on behalf of the ANC (in an official capacity)
but continued his business dealings under the
name of the Nkobi group, involving Zuma in
various instances."
It was then that Shaik also began to style
himself variously as Zuma's "financial adviser"
and "economic adviser". Zuma, fresh from exile
and with a large and
growing collection of dependants, was
open to Shaik's assistance.
The first payment to Zuma took place on October
25 1995 – and the KPMG report traces how a
pattern of mutual favours developed.
KPMG notes: "It is evident that Zuma … at
various points, and especially with regard to
the relationship of the Nkobi group with the
Thomson group of companies, attended meetings
and visits with representatives of the Nkobi
group on issues that were of interest to the
Nkobi group."
With his brother Chippy heading defence
acquisition, Shaik was
well placed to
benefit from the decision in the 1990s to
re-equip the navy. Early on, he sought
an alliance with the
French defence conglomerate Thomson-CSF.
Thomson was also seeking access to and business
from the new ANC elite. The KPMG report sketches
how cynically the French calculated their
success, which they believed would be dependent
on pleasing the politicians and choosing the
"right" local partners.
And the abrasive Shaik was vulnerable. Parallel
to its relationship with him, Thomson was wooing
Reuel Khoza's CNI
group, perceived to be more favoured by Thabo
Mbeki, then the deputy president.
Zuma was Shaik's trump card and, as the report
makes clear, he shamelessly used his proximity
to Zuma to cajole or bully his way into deals.
Zuma's key interventions came in July 1998 when
he accompanied Shaik to a meeting in London with
one of Thomson's top executives to reassure the
French of Shaik's suitability – and later in
Durban, where he was present when the formal
allocation to Nkobi of a shareholding in Thomson
was confirmed.
In turn, Zuma was
not shy about taking advantage of the
financial resources Shaik provided (sometimes
grudgingly, given his own precarious cash
position).
By way of illustration: Zuma's reliance on
funding from Shaik grew from one payment of R3
500 in 1995 to 176 payments totalling R534 858
in 2004 and, finally, 61 payments totalling R819
333 in the first six months of 2005, ending just
after Shaik's conviction for bribery. The total
over 10 years: R4 072 500
By then, the real ambivalence of the Zuma-Shaik
relationship had been captured in a way
not even KPMG's
figures can match.
Shaik's secretary testified that her boss had
complained about "politicians", exclaiming one
day that he "has to carry a jar of Vaseline
because he gets fucked all the time, but
that's okay because
he gets what he wants and they get want they
want".
Nelson Mandela – R1-million-plus
Jacob Zuma
seems to have been identified fairly early on as
a financial "problem child" by Nelson Mandela.
The KPMG report quotes from a 1998 internal Absa
memo when the bank was considering taking on
Zuma, then the ANC deputy president, as a
client.
The memo referred to the supposed fact that
Zuma had been
disciplined by Mandela and then-ANC
treasurer Mendi Msimang over the conduct of his
financial affairs. It also stated that Mandela
had apparently agreed to settle Zuma's debts –
"this info to be handled strictly confidential".
"The source of the payment could not be
disclosed to us at this stage. The amount to be
paid will be R1.5-million," the Absa memo said.
However, no funding appears to have been
received from Mandela until October 2000, when
the then retired president endorsed a R2-million
cheque to Zuma.
R1-million of that was destined as a donation to
the charitable education trust Zuma had founded
and was duly paid over by Zuma.
Whether the other R1-million was intended for
Zuma's personal benefit is unclear. Zuma issued
a cheque for R1-million to an account in the
name of the Development Africa Trust that had
been opened by Durban businessperson Vivian
Reddy.
As the Shaik trial revealed, around this time
Reddy became involved in funding Zuma's Nkandla
estate development.
But Shaik, who controlled Zuma's accounts,
stopped the payment to Development Africa,
instead using Mandela's money to plug holes in
his own company accounts.
Shaik eventually repaid R900 000 to Development
Africa – partly using R250 000 that was found to
have been paid in
terms of the "bribe agreement" allegedly reached
between Shaik, French arms company Thomson-CSF
and Zuma.
Shaik completed the repayment with a R400 000
cheque to Development Africa on June 23 2005. It
was striking for two reasons:
-
There was an outflow only days later of the same amount of R400 000 from Development Africa to the International Convention Centre in Durban, where it was accepted as payment on behalf of Zulu King Goodwill Zwelithini for his daughter's wedding – tending to confirm allegations that Development Africa was used at least in part as a slush fund to buy the king's favour for the ANC; and
-
On the same day, June 23 2005, a new R1-million cheque from Mandela was deposited into Zuma's Absa cheque account, wiping out his known overdrafts, which stood at more than R400 000 at the end of the previous year. At least from this Mandela million, it appears, Zuma could benefit personally.
The new R1-million
from Mandela came only nine days after
then-president Mbeki had dismissed Zuma as his
deputy following Shaik's corruption conviction.
Jurgen Kögl – R1 075 091
An enigmatic broker and investor originally from
Namibia, Jurgen Kögl has counted a number of
politicians as close friends. They included
Mbeki, who stayed in his Hillbrow flat after
returning from exile, and Frederik van Zyl
Slabbert, the former opposition leader.
Like Shaik, Kögl has been described as a
"financial adviser" to Zuma. In a 2003 interview
with the Mail & Guardian, he justified
sponsoring politicians, saying: "There is
nothing sinister about these relationships. What
happens is that you provide support and find
ways of making sure these guys are able to get
on with negotiations or with governing the
country."
The KPMG report identifies Kögl's investment
management company, Cay Nominees, as the source
of about a dozen payments totalling R1 075 091
to, or on behalf of, Zuma.
The single biggest payment –R600 000 into the
bond account of a Killarney, Johannesburg, flat
owned by Zuma – raised much interest from KPMG
and Scorpions investigators, who appear to have
suspected it was disguised bribe money from
French arms company Thomson-CSF.
The Kögl payments include:
May 5 1995: R40 000 deposit for Zuma's
R426 500 purchase of the Killarney flat (which
appears to have been subsequently occupied by
his wife Kate, who committed suicide in December
2000, and their children);
February 22 and March 5 1999: Two
payments of R20 000 each to a Zuma account with
Mercedes-Benz Finance for a Mercedes-Benz
E-Class 230. Zuma had been in arrears since
buying the vehicle the year before and Mercedes
had issued a summons;
June 9 1999: R40 000 to a Zuma cheque
account;
June 17 1999: R50 000 to Zuma's bond
account for the Killarney flat. This is the day
after Zuma was inaugurated as deputy president.
The bond account had been habitually in arrears
since at least 1997, towards the end of which
Standard Bank obtained a debt judgment and
nearly sold the flat in execution;
August 15 2001: R183 000 to Zuma's
account for the Mercedes E230. This was to
settle the account in full after it had again
fallen into serious arrears following Kögl's
February and March 1999 bailouts; and
August 23 2001: R600 000 to Zuma's bond
account for the Killarney flat. This was to pay
the bulk of the outstanding amount after Zuma
had made no further payments since Kögl's June
1999 bailout.
KPMG presents a trail appearing to show that the
payments of R183 000 and R600 000 flowed from a
R1.19-million transfer to Kögl's Cay Nominees
from a client account at a British law firm.
The audit firm speculates that the payment might
have been "another structure for transferring
funds" from Thomson-CSF after only the first
R250 000 tranche of the R500 000-a-year French
bribe had reached Shaik through a sham "service
provider" contract six months earlier.
The Scorpions appear
to have abandoned attempts to force disclosure
of the money's source in London when Kögl and
Zuma went to court to stop them in 2007.
When the parliamentary ethics committee
investigated Zuma in 2003 for allegedly not
declaring benefits, Kögl and Zuma claimed to the
committee that the R656 000 known by then to
have passed from the former to the latter was an
interest-bearing loan repayable after 10 years.
KPMG states: "We could not identify any loan
agreement between Zuma and Cay Nominees."
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With acknowledgement to Sam Sole, Stefaans Brümmer and Mail & Guardian.
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