Maseko prepares to testify at state capture inquiry
Ex-GCIS head has no regrets about telling all
For years, former government spin doctor Themba Maseko hero-worshipped former president Jacob Zuma.
But now he is willing to put his life on the line when he places Zuma at the centre of the Gupta state capture scandal when he testifies at the state capture commission next week.
“For me it was a question of exposing the malfeasance... I have come to realise that [Zuma] was a corrupt man right from the beginning,” he said.
He hasn’t spoken to Zuma since exposing his involvement in the scandal estimated to have cost the country more than R100-billion.
For six years, the former Government Communication and Information System (GCIS) head thought he was the only one bullied by the Gupta family to unlawfully facilitate deals with the state.
But when former deputy finance minister Mcebisi Jonas revealed in 2016 that the Guptas had offered him the job of finance minister and a R600-million bribe to divert state deals to them, Maseko said he was emboldened to speak out about his experience in 2010. “When I saw the Mcebisi matter – that they offered him R600m and they demanded that he gives them certain things – I realised that maybe I was taking this thing too personally. For me, the Jonas statement brought it home. It’s bigger than me. It’s a campaign to loot the state and I felt I needed to talk about it,” Maseko said last week.
Maseko is part of the first round of witnesses who will give evidence at the Zondo commission that starts today.
His testimony will be critical in placing Zuma at the centre of assisting the Guptas score lucrative deals from the state.
Zuma infamously told Maseko by phone in 2010: “My brother, there are these Gupta guys who need to meet with you and who need your help. Please help them.”
Maseko is expected to testify before the inquiry on August 31 on how Ajay Gupta threatened to speak to his seniors in government to “sort him out or replace him” because he had refused to co-operate with demands that GCIS advertising spend be diverted to the Gupta-owned New Age newspaper. Months later, in February 2011, Maseko was removed as head of GCIS by Zuma.
Maseko said it was difficult for him to come to terms with the fact that an ANC leader he had hero-worshipped as a student activist could do something as bad as this. He said when he decided to come forward in 2016, he panicked about how people would react, but he has no regrets.
“I know that many people in the ANC knew that this ... was happening. They were scared to talk. Zuma had become so powerful that people were literally scared to speak. There were murmurings and whispers but very few, if any, were prepared to speak up,” he said.