Zondo round-up report

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Gupta naturalisation claim another ruse by Mngoma, says Gigaba

The allegation that Malusi Gigaba facilitated the early naturalisation of some members of the Gupta family while he was minister of home affairs is a lie, as are many others told to the state capture commission by his estranged wife Noma Mngoma.

Gigaba said this when he appeared before the commission on Monday afternoon to answer to more of Mngoma’s allegations. He repeated a statement he made at his last appearance on Thursday that Mngoma is motivated by her bitterness, stemming from an unsuccessful attempt to extort more benefits out of the pair’s divorce settlement.

“Chairperson, you’re dealing with a lie. Again Ms Mngoma projects herself as this important person with whom I consulted on everything, or who I briefed on everything,” said Gigaba in response to a question about his reaction to being appointed minister of home affairs in May 2014.

Read the full report here.[PDF]

Confinements deal continues to haunt Singh

Did the four confidential confinements to McKinsey, awarded in March and April 2014 for four separate projects, have Transnet’s best interests at heart? Former CFO of Transnet Anoj Singh once again failed to convince the state capture commission that they did.

Singh appeared on Monday evening. He had asked the commission to give him time to study documents that recorded the process followed at the time of the awards for coal, iron ore and manganese management contracts, re-negotiated with McKinsey. Four confinements were approved over as many days by Brian Molefe, who was the GCEO of Transnet at the time.

The commission’s interest in the deals was piqued by the urgency with which the four awards appeared to have been handled, over just four days, to the same company, when they could have been grouped together owing to their similarity in scope.

Read the full report here.[PDF]

Montana invented evidence for commission, Zondo hears

Lucky Montana has been accused by two of his former subordinates of fabricating evidence he submitted to the state capture commission. The former CEO of Prasa told the commission during his appearance last month that former legal head Martha Ngoye and current head of strategy Tiro Holele were involved in the bid adjudicating committee (BAC) that recommended the award of the R3.5-billion locomotives contract to Swifambo Rail Leasing in 2013.

Montana placed them ‘at the heart’ of the irregular tender that has since been set aside. But Holele said the actual key players in that tender are known, and have shown the commission the middle finger.

Ngoye and Holele submitted on Tuesday that a document serving as part of Montana’s affidavit before the commission was fabricated to reflect their attendance of a meeting in July 2012 that recommended Swifambo be awarded the contract. Both told the commission that Montana’s submission that the meeting was that of the BAC that decided the fate of the contract was false, as such a committee did not exist in Prasa’s procurement structure at the time.

Read the full report here.[PDF]

Pita’s safety deposit boxes come under scrutiny

Like his predecessor Anoj Singh, former Transnet CFO Garry Pita rented a number of safety deposit boxes at Johannesburg’s Knox Vault facility over the course of a few months in 2015. This was around the time that Gupta-linked Regiments Capital was starting to cash in on its allegedly irregular contracts with Transnet.

Pita was questioned by the state capture commission on Tuesday evening on his seven boxes, acquired between June and December, which he said were for safekeeping of documents of a family business, and not cash from the Guptas.

He became the acting CFO in August 2015 when Singh was seconded to Eskom, having served as the group executive for supply chain management. One of the benefits of his new role was that he would receive a close protection officer (CPO), like Singh had had. In this case, it was an individual known before the commission as Witness 3, who testified in-camera last year to his time as driver and CPO of both Pita and Singh.

Read the full report here. [PDF]

These articles were originally published on Corruption Watch.