Why Shaun blinked after court threat on Gupta action
Veteran unionist Vavi’s ‘clever manoeuvre’ behind this week’s drama
● NPA boss Shaun Abrahams only agreed to pursue the Guptas and their business associates when threatened with court action late last year.
It has emerged that repeated requests from the Asset Forfeiture Unit for Abrahams to act on the family were ignored until his own staff threatened to take him to court.
The AFU itself was given an ultimatum by the South African Federation of Trade Unions to expedite legal proceedings on state capture or face litigation.
Following the push by Saftu, Abrahams agreed last month that the AFU should seek preservation orders against Gupta associates Trillian Capital and international consulting firm McKinsey for the recovery of R1.59-billion.
Saftu is the trade union group formed last year when Zwelinzima Vavi split from Cosatu. Vavi is Saftu’s general-secretary.
The Sunday Times understands that Saftu wrote to the NPA late in November demanding that the AFU freeze the assets of the Guptas and their associates on the basis of allegations of fraud, theft, corruption and money laundering relating to deals at Eskom and Transnet.
This week the AFU executed two preservations orders, one against McKinsey and Trillian and the other against the Guptas and their companies.
“They [Saftu] manoeuvred very cleverly to leave the NPA with few options,” said a senior NPA official with close knowledge of the matter. “Essentially they prepared their own AFU case which they threatened to take to court if the NPA refused to do it. The boss [Abrahams] was very unhappy but could not manoeuvre out of it.”
The preservation orders were authorised by a court on December 15.
“The order granted against McKinsey and Trillian is the result of constant pressure by Saftu and the good work of honest AFU lawyers and investigators,” said Vavi.
“It is the beginning of the closing of the net, but it is not evidence of Shaun Abrahams’s work . . . It is well known that Shaun Abrahams has been blocking this.”
Another senior official with knowledge of the state capture investigations said Abrahams had asked the AFU to hold off on executing
They prepared their own case . . . The boss was unhappy but could not manoeuvre out of it
the preservation orders until after the ANC’s elective conference, which was held in mid-December.
“Shaun only succumbed to the pressure because he was threatened with court action which was going to embarrass him as a Zuma stooge,” this official said.
The NPA did not respond to questions about Abrahams’s alleged attempts to stall action against Gupta associates and the threats of court action against him.
A source in the AFU said Vavi and lobby group the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse had presented a document to the AFU and had placed significant pressure on the unit to act.
R1.59-billion in payments
In its court application last month the AFU asked the judge to appoint a curator to preserve property worth R1.59-billion, the total amount of suspect payments made to McKinsey and Trillian by Eskom.
These payments were paid over six months in two tranches. McKinsey received R1-billion and Trillian the rest. Last year McKinsey told an inquiry into state capture by parliament’s portfolio committee on public enterprises that it was willing to pay back the money, which represented payment for work McKinsey did on a contract that did not receive National Treasury approval.
Last year the High Court in Pretoria ruled that Abrahams should be removed from office because his appointment was unconstitutional.