As debate within ANC circles reaches fever pitch over whether Parliament should take steps to legislate political party involvement in state deals, more evidence of its investment arm's tentacles in business - with the help of its government links - has begun to emerge.
United Manganese of Kalahari (UMK), a Russian-South African consortium, won - according to a Reuters report of February 2008 - a mining licence for a planned $200 million (R1.54 billion at the time) manganese mine near Kuruman in the Northern Cape. UMK has an office in Sandton.
When asked about a 51 percent black economic empowerment shareholding - of which Chancellor House owns half - UMK chief executive Wilrich Schroeder, who lives in the Western Cape, said: "I am afraid you will have to discuss that with them (Chancellor House)."
Asked if he could confirm the shareholding or whether Chancellor House had withdrawn its shareholding, he said: "It is a private company. I am afraid I cannot help you."
According to an Institute for Security Studies report, the deal was struck in the wake of a number of trips to Russia that involved Department of Mineral Resources director-general Sandile Nogxina and came two years after then president Vladimir Putin visited South Africa to have talks with former president Thabo Mbeki.
ID chief whip Lance Greyling expressed concern at "yet another" example of ANC involvement in a project that had to receive state sanction. Greyling has led a charge by Parliament to put on hold a World Bank loan to the state-owned power entity, Eskom, for the building of the Medupi power plant while Chancellor House still has an interest in Hitachi Power Africa.
While Eskom's Brian Dames on Friday said that the World Bank loan did not benefit the Hitachi consortium - which is supplying a boiler for Medupi - Greyling said that this argument was disingenuous. Irrespective of whether there was a direct benefit for Hitachi Power Africa, and thus Chancellor House, he said the ANC had benefited from "that project as a whole. You can't have a power plant without boilers."
In the case of UMK, the mining licence had to be awarded by the then Department of Minerals and Energy, now the Department of Mineral Resources, he pointed out.
Commenting on the UMK project, Greyling said there was heavy state involvement in this deal. It had involved state land that was sold off.
"We need to investigate any irregularities and conflicts of interest that arise whenever Chancellor House is involved in a deal which has this extent of government sanction," Greyling said.
The institute's report on corporate fronts and political party funding noted three years ago that Renova Manganese Investments - a company incorporated in the Bahamas, a corporate tax haven - had a 49 percent stake in UMK.
Renova, headed by Russian billionaire Viktor Vekselberg, injected $10m into UMK, which was then valued at about $20m.
That would have meant a Chancellor House stake worth more than R30m. Renova, however, projected that its value would rocket to $1bn, which means the ANC stake could be worth about $250m today.
Nogxina and department spokesman Jeremy Michaels were not available for comment, and UMK marketing director Johan Kriek said: "You are talking to the wrong person." He said he dealt with commercial aspects of the business not the shareholder side.
He suggested Chancellor House might have an involvement "maybe indirectly".
He then referred questions to Schroeder.
Attempts to reach Chancellor House chief executive Mamatho Netsianda, a former deputy defence secretary, also proved fruitless.
The institute's report stated that the mining title deed registered rights to eight farm portions in the Kuruman district to UMK, coming to a total of 15.2 hectares.