Prasa cloud hangs over Buthelezi
SFISO Buthelezi’s ascension to cabinet comes some 12 months after he probably believed it would.
The Sunday Times reported in May how Buthelezi, a former member of parliament’s standing committee on finance, was sworn in as an MP as Pravin Gordhan was being targeted by the Hawks in one of many attempts to oust him as finance minister.
Pressure from stakeholders prevented a reshuffle, which would have seen Buthelezi, 55, grab the same position after the planned removal of Gordhan and his deputy, Mcebisi Jonas. The only difference is that, instead of Buthelezi deputising Brian Molefe, as had been planned, he is now deputy to Malusi Gigaba.
In the ANC, Buthelezi has been a card-carrying member since 1981.
His sister, Philisiwe Buthelezi, the CEO of the National Empowerment Fund, is married to ANC heavyweight Nathi Mthethwa, the minister of arts and culture.
Buthelezi served eight years on Robben Island, where he got his first of three degrees.
Like many of Zuma’s trusted acolytes, he comes with a tainted past, having been mentioned in Derailed, former public protector Thuli Madonsela’s report on the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa detailing large-scale corruption.
The Makana Investment Corporation, a company in which Buthelezi was a shareholder and a director, clinched an advisory services tender at Prasa while he was board chairman at the rail agency, according to the report.
Madonsela did not make conclusive findings because Lucky Montana, who was CEO when the report was being compiled, failed to provide key documents.
Madonsela had wanted to find out whether Buthelezi declared the conflict which arose from his relationship with Makana, a subsidiary of Cadiz Holdings, a company that secured work to provide advisory services to Prasa on its R51-billion rolling stock tender.
This dark cloud that hangs over Buthelezi, a seasoned politician and qualified economist, will remain with him until public protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane concludes the investigation into Prasa, one of several left incomplete when Madonsela’s seven-year term ended in October.
His relationship with Zuma dates back to the government of national unity when he advised the then KwaZulu-Natal MEC.