‘No end to bribes from Bosasa’

Ex-officials continued to receive kickbacks

BOSASA continued to dish out bribes to senior government officials long after they had left public service, the company’s former chief operations officer Angelo Agrizzi testified yesterday at the commission of inquiry into state capture.

Agrizzi told the commission, headed by Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo, that former Correctional Services national commissioner Linda Mti had been paid R65 000 a month by Bosasa chief executive Gavin Watson for the duration of the lucrative contracts with the department.

According to Agrizzi, Bosasa increased payments to Mti after he left the department and by December 2016, when he left the company, Mti was still receiving payments.

Agrizzi said Watson had told him that the “fatman (Mti) delivers on his promises”, hence he needed to be kept on Bosasa’s payroll.

Mti stopped working at the correctional services department in 2007.

“As long as the contract lasted he would be paid, that was the agreement. That’s why until today they are still being looked after,” Agrizzi testified.

He said Watson also helped Mti establish his own company, Lianorah Investments, and Bosasa paid for, furnished and decorated his house in Savannah Hills.

Agrizzi said Riaan Hoeksma’s Riekele Construction not only built Mti’s house but that of former Correctional Services chief financial officer Patrick Gillingham. Bosasa covered the costs of both houses.

Mti had another house in Savannah Hills, which was also renovated and furnished by Bosasa.

Agrizzi testified that he helped Mti draw up the security proposal for the 2010 Fifa World Cup, as well as paid for vacations and travelling for his family.

Bosasa also paid for the studies of two of Mti’s children and provided a security guard for his house.

Gillingham received a MercedesBenz E-class and a VW Polo for his daughter.

Agrizzi admitted to using the name of his late father-in-law JJ Venter to create a fictitious account to pay for flights for Mti’s family.

He even asked his brother Claudio to help quash the drunk driving charge against Mti, by raising money to bribe a court official. Claudio, however, terminated the arrangement.

Agrizzi testified that Bosasa spied on senior Correctional Services officials.

”I was asked to do a spying exercise on them. Everyone who was problematic towards Bosasa would be spied on,” Agrizzi said, adding that he hired the company that did the spying.

Agrizzi also implicated a Popcru (Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union) official, known only as “Sbu”, as being a part of a group that had been paid R1 million a month to influence correctional services national commissioner Vernie Petersen to co-operate with Bosasa.

In 2007, when Petersen had been appointed national commissioner, Agrizzi tried to contact him about possible future ventures, but Petersen wanted nothing to do with them.

He said the payment to “Sbu”, former national commissioner Khulekani Sithole and the department’s KwaZulu-Natal regional commissioner Mnikelwa Nxele, was later reduced R700 000 a month after Bosasa subsidiary Sondolo IT lost the staffing contract at the prisons.

Agrizzi said the Popcru official was roped in so that Petersen would “feel the wrath of the union”.

Last week, Agrizzi told Deputy Chief Justice Zondo that the Chemical, Energy, Paper, Printing, Wood and Allied Workers’ Union’s general secretary Simon Mofokeng was also on Watson’s payroll to pressure Sasol into giving contracts.