Legalbrief | your legal news hub Saturday 25 September 2021

You're on your own, ANC tells Magashule

As the heat is turned up on ANC secretary-general Ace Magashule over alleged rampant corruption in the years he was Premier of the Free State, the party has told him he is on his own on this one, notes Legalbrief. It also emerged at the weekend that a second person close to him has been poisoned and that he intended to turn to the courts to fight claims at both the Zondo Commission of Inquiry into State Capture (see separate report below) and in the book by journalist Pieter-Louis Myburgh, which made damning allegations against the man said to be a close ally of former President Jacob Zuma. It has also been revealed how Magashule's relationship with the controversial Gupta family allegedly developed.

There is a climate of fear in the Free State that those suspected of leaking information about Magashule will be ‘dealt with’, according to a Sunday Times report. This was sparked by the poisoning of Magashule's right-hand Chris Ackeer – he was released from a Johannesburg hospital on Friday two weeks after being admitted – the second person with links to Magashule to have been poisoned. Sandile Msibi, a Magashule ally who was head of the Free State Department of Police, Safety & Transport, died in December 2017 after being poisoned. Ackeer, from Bethlehem, has been close to Magashule since his time as Free State Premier and is Magashule's strategic manager at Luthuli House. ‘I am not out of the woods yet … but am getting better,’ he said. Ackeer declined to say if he had any suspicions about who might want him dead or if he would open a case with the police. Free State government officials say Ackeer is lucky to be alive. ‘Msibi died a slow, painful death after there were allegations of corruption that were levelled against him. He was not going to go down alone as the Hawks were investigating the allegations. The best way was to kill him,’ the Sunday Times quotes a source as saying. Msibi was a senior official in several Free State municipalities before joining the Safety and Security Department.

At Msibi's funeral in January last year, Magashule told mourners that Msibi had been ‘murdered’. He said he and former North West Premier Supra Mahumapelo had sought help from Zuma in arranging for Msibi to be flown to Russia for treatment. Magashule said Msibi died a few days after plans for the trip were finalised, but before he could get on the plane. Msibi was being investigated for allegedly channelling millions of rands' worth of provincial legal consulting contracts to his personal attorney. Another senior Free State government official reportedly told the Sunday Times that some officials have been living in fear after being accused of leaking information to the media. Pieter-Louis Myburgh, in his recently released book, Gangster State, quotes sources in the Free State close to Magashule as saying Ackeer was ‘a fixer of sorts’. ‘Ace first brought Ackeer into the ANC to try and get more support from coloured voters in the Free State. Then he gradually started to work for Ace. Later he started doing Ace's dirty work. He would pick up money for Ace or do other things that Ace couldn't do with the people from his official blue-lights security team,’ according to the book. Ackeer denied the allegations. ‘I am not the SG's fixer and I don't collect cash from other people on his behalf,’ the report quotes him as saying.

Meanwhile, Magashule has been told by the party's national executive committee (NEC) to stop using ANC platforms to defend himself against allegations of corruption. According to another Sunday Times report, the message is said to have been delivered by President Cyril Ramaphosa. This comes after the ANC issued what the report describes as ‘a bizarre statement’ last Sunday, dismissing reports in the Sunday Times and City Press on the allegations of corruption against Magashule from the Myburgh book. The statement labelled Myburgh's book ‘fake news’. It used terms not normally used by the ANC, calling the two Sunday newspapers ‘Stratcom media’. Insiders in the ANC communications team said they were shocked by the statement because none had written it. Several NEC members said Ramaphosa told the meeting that the party's top officials had met Magashule. ‘The meeting resolved that this is not an ANC matter … it is the SG's issue and he should handle it outside of the ANC,’ said an NEC member. Another member said: ‘Comrade Ace was not on the agenda in the NEC meeting. But because of this book and the subsequent news articles, this matter came up ... the leadership felt that the SG must manage these allegations against him outside of the parameters of the ANC'. The party’s acting spokesperson Dakota Legoete confirmed the NEC had decided Magashule should face the allegations in his personal capacity. ‘The issue related to the book about the SG is that the SG will take it alone as an individual because it involves his era as Premier, not his current position of SG.’ Pressure is mounting on Magashule to come clean, according to the report. It quotes ANC treasurer-general Paul Mashatile as saying it would be advisable for him to appear before the party's integrity commission to explain himself. Magashule reportedly told Independent Media that he had been advised by his lawyers to approach the courts to challenge former ANC Free State Treasurer Mxolisi Dukwana’s explosive testimony at the commission chaired by Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo on Friday. He said the commission’s findings were not binding as it was not a court of law. ‘The court route is the better route,’ Magashule is quoted as saying by the Sunday Tribune, adding that he has consulted his lawyers. The commission’s rules state that a self-incriminating answer or a statement given by a witness is not admissible as evidence against that person in criminal proceedings brought, except where the person is charged with failing to appear before the inquiry or lies when giving evidence. Magashule claims Dukwana’s evidence before the commission was all ‘lies, well co-ordinated and fabricated’ and that ANC members and South Africans would not be fooled'. ‘The truth will prevail,’ he said. Magashule asked why Dukwana declined a decade-long R2m a month bribe offered to him by Gupta in 2012 and accepted R10 000 from the same person two years later (see separate report below). The former Free State Premier is also taking aim at Myburgh’s book, saying legal action is being considered against the author and publishers. However, both are determined to defend the any action Magashule might decide to bring.

It also came to light at the weekend that Magashule was a business partner of Rajesh ‘Tony’ Gupta between 2006 and 2009 – and records in the Gupta leaks show around R100 000 was paid from Gupta-owned Sahara Systems to their company. One payment reference was captured in accounting records as ‘Mr Ace’, notes a News24 report. It says Magashule and Gupta's shared directorship of a mysterious company named Moetapele Projects has provided the first documentary evidence giving reliable clues to the origins of Magashule's relationship with the Gupta family. Magashule and Gupta were appointed as directors on 4 August 2006. Magashule resigned on 10 September 2009 – a few months after he was first appointed as Free State Premier by Zuma. Gupta, who since 2016 has resigned from various companies, is still a director of Moetapele. Contained in the Gupta leaks are accounting records that show while Magashule was a director of Moetapele Projects, payments totalling roughly R100 000 were made from Sahara Systems to Moetapele. News24 says the records are not complete, and there may be other payments. There is also no indication for what the payment was made.