Johannesburg - At least 19 people are to be arrested for their alleged hand in the State Capture of the country as implicated in the Zondo Commission Report.
The Sunday Independent has established that the National Prosecuting Authority’s (NPA) Investigative Directorate (ID) and the Hawks have set their sights on 19 people, including former state-owned enterprise (SOE) executives, implicated in state capture reports. They are expected to be arrested before the end of September this year.
“It will be nasty and ugly in the next few weeks. Many people will use dirty tricks to evade their arrests, but we will hunt them down and bring them to justice,” said a senior NPA, who asked not to be named because he wasn’t authorised to speak to the media yesterday.
The publication understands the officials were investigated for their role in the irregular awarding of tenders and other deals worth billions of rands to companies and entities linked to the Gupta family, who are reported to be close associates of former president Jacob Zuma.
The alleged corruption reportedly occurred when Zuma was the president of the country. South Africans have been looking forward to the arrest and prosecutions of certain individuals. But many believe that some of the pending arrests would be a witch-hunt. They believe this is to settle political scores as the ANC prepares for its elective conference in December.
The NPA sent shock waves and a strong message that they mean business when the Investigative Directorate and the Hawks arrested former Transnet executives, including the former group CEO Siyabonga Gama, on Friday.
Gama, along with former Transnet chief financial officer Garry Pita, and former group treasurer Phetolo Ramosebudi, appeared at the Palm Ridge Magistrate’s Court. They were released on bail ranging from R25 000 to R250 000.
These former executives appeared along with Eric Wood, founding partner for Regiments Capital and Daniel Roy, who is a director for Trillian Asset Management. Regiments and Trillian are Gupta-linked companies.
The five are accused of fraud, corruption and money laundering of R93 million paid to Trillian. They were arrested after the second Zondo Commission report, handed to President Cyril Ramaphosa in February, recommended that they must face criminal prosecution for their alleged role in state capture corruption.
Their co-accused, who also appeared in court briefly on Friday, Kuben Moodley, a man described as the Guptas’ fixer, was arrested in September last year in connection with the same matter.
Gama, Pita and Roy were released on R50 000 bail, while Ramosebudi is out on R25 000 bail, but Wood’s bail was set for R250 000. The case was postponed to July 13 this year.
Gama is accused of illegally awarding an R50 billion contract to China South Rail for 104 locomotives, among other investigations he faces. He was fired from Transnet in 2018.
He told the Zondo Commission that his initial disciplinary charges in 2009 were a ploy to prevent him from taking over from Maria Ramos. He indicated that Zuma had nothing to do with his reinstatement as group CEO in April 2011.
Ramosebudi is accused of receiving a Range Rover Sport to ensure that Trillian replaced JP Morgan as the lead arranger for the rail entity’s R12 billion club loan. A Zuma sympathiser, who asked not to be named, said the Zondo reports would be used “as a political weapon against comrades who stand in the way of Ramaphosa’s second term“.
“We must admit that there were some elements of corruption during Zuma’s term, but today people are brazenly looting during Ramaphosa’s administration, and they are protected because they belong to the right faction,” he said.
Another Zuma sympathiser said the Glencore scandal, which broke out this week, was a typical example that the Zondo commission “wasn’t fair and square”.
The company pleaded guilty in the US to a web of bribery charges, including bribing judges, and price manipulation in Nigeria, Democratic Republic of Congo, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Equatorial Guinea, Brazil and Venezuela.
“I won’t be surprised if Glencore also paid a lot of bribes in South Africa, but Zondo turned a blind eye to those allegations because it would implicate Ramaphosa,” he said.
Former Eskom CEO Brian Molefe told the Commission that Glencore used its relationship with Ramaphosa before he became the president as a bargaining tool to “extort” money from Eskom.
Ramaphosa used to be the chairperson of Glencore’s Optimum coal mine from 2012 to 2014, which had a coal supply agreement dispute with Eskom when Molefe took over the reins of the power utility.
Tegeta Exploration and Resources, another Gupta-linked company, entered into an R2.15 billion deal to buy the Optimum Mine in December 2015 after the Swiss company placed the mine under administration.
The Guptas allegedly wanted to use Tegeta as a vehicle to buy Optimum using money from Eskom.
NPA spokesperson Bulelwa Makeke yesterday said that the NPA doesn’t want to speculate on who would be arrested next.
The Investigative Director and the Hawks are investigating cases ranging from fraud and corruption, Makeke said.
“We will make a public announcement when we are making those arrests, but right now, we don’t want to speculate,” Makeke said.
Makeke couldn’t confirm or deny that most of those who are going to be arrested are those who Chief Justice Raymond Zondo recommended in his State Capture Reports.
Zondo has recommended that several former executives of SOEs and politicians should face criminal prosecutions after they were implicated during the commission hearings.