What a week for fiddlers of truth
In just one week, the flotsam and jetsam of South African avarice, hubris and perfidy have washed up on the screens of our digital devices, reminding us of the gargantuan battle that our warriors for justice and fiduciary oversight are up against.
Since the discovery seven years ago that Markus Jooste cooked Steinhoff’s books, it seemed that the meneer with a Midas touch from Stellies was untouchable.
But as my colleague Neesa Moodley reported on Wednesday, 20 March, the Financial Sector Conduct Authority fined Jooste R475-million and announced its intent to lodge a criminal case against him.
Pauli van Wyk also reported that the National Prosecuting Authority was lining up a team of ace prosecutors to confront Jooste and his co-accused with charges linked to the manipulation of Steinhoff’s share price and misrepresentations to third-party business people he did deals with, as well as years of misstatements in the international furniture retailer’s annual financial statements. Jooste was meant to present himself for arrest on 22 March.
Instead, he took a stroll from his Voëlklip mansion in Hermanus along the cliff path and shot himself, leaving his wife Ingrid and three children, his family, friends and accomplices to pick up the pieces.
Those who dubbed Jooste the darling of the stock exchange couldn’t see beyond the dollar signs dangling in front of them. Forbes listed the net worth of the boykie, who ostensibly could do no wrong when it came to making the rich richer, at $400-million in 2015. That’s impressive for those who measure their worth in mansions, mistresses, cars, polo clubs, horses, wine farms and million-dollar entertainment, and those dazzled by dollar signs while turning a blind eye to bullshit.
But German authorities caught on to the crap and started investigating. On 5 December 2017, Jooste resigned after the company announced accounting irregularities. Steinhoff’s share price plunged 90% as it was revealed that he had overstated profits and assets by nearly $12-billion. The crash showed capitalism at its worst – a hollowed-out kind of Ponzi scheme based on hot air.
What’s wrong with a bit of fiddling, pretending all is on the up and up when things are actually going pear-shaped? Well, the livelihoods of pensioners, for one, were eviscerated as pension funds, including the Government Employees Pension Fund (GEPF), were heavily invested in Steinhoff.
As Linda Ensor wrote in Businesslive in 2018, the GEPF held 428 million shares worth R24-billion at the end of November 2017. By 23 January 2018, it held 392 million shares with a market value of R3-billion. That’s a lot of livelihood down the tube.
James-brent Styan, the author of Steinhoff: Inside South Africa’s Biggest Corporate Crash, told EWN many lives were destroyed by the Steinhoff crash.
“Personally, I’m even aware of people who took their own lives as well at the time, and shortly thereafter, because of the complete devastation that happened in their lives [because of] the Steinhoff crash.”
The Steinhoff story is a tragedy that does not end with Jooste’s suicide, and it began with the licence he was given by weak corporate governance to loot and live large.
Another bullshitter, who was sadly given a licence to loot and live large by the majority of South African voters who handed him the keys to the kingdom for two successive elections, is alive and well and lording it up as the last of the untouchables.
He is parading around singing Umshini wami (Bring Me My Machine Gun) for the umkhonto Wesizwe party that is sweeping up support from the gullible and the greedy, who think the Zunami will usher in another decade on the gravy train for them.
On 16 March, at The Maslow on Time Square in Pretoria, Jacob Zuma regaled a crowd of well-to-do Afrikaners gathered by diamond dealer and alleged Ponzi schemer Louis Liebenberg.
Liebenberg and whoever else is funding the MK party must think their hunt for more filthy lucre will be blessed by the 81-year-old conservative Constitution hater.
What did the patriarch have to say to the attentive Afrikaner crowd?
Reading between the lines, it went something like this: “I like to believe that waving this gun and getting you to sing Umshini wami makes me virile and macho and scary enough to
convince you we won’t shoot you – if you support me with your millions like my friends Louis, Schabir, Rajesh, Tony and Ajay while I fleece the country so my wives and children can live it up wherever the hell they fancy, as long as they worship me as ubaba.”
Sadly, JZ is going to need more Liebenbergs backing him as his bank, FNB, was instructed by the high court to place a hold on outgoing payments from all his accounts to comply with VBS liquidators. Zuma owes R6.5-million for a loan he hasn’t repaid.
His avoidance of his day in court for two decades by using Stalingrad tactics may just be nearing its end as well. On Wednesday, Judge Nkosinathi Chili said the former president had failed to show that Billy Downer’s presence as his prosecutor would violate his right to a fair trial.
The day before, the long arm of the law also reached Parliament as investigators raided Speaker Nosiviwe Mapisa-nqakula’s home in connection with allegations that she solicited bribes from a contractor when she was the minister of defence. She claims she is innocent but is now on special leave.
All in all, it’s been a good week for justice warriors. In our lead story in this week’s DM168, our Eastern Cape correspondent, Estelle Ellis, interviews the vice-chancellor of Fort Hare University, Professor Sakhele Buhlungu, about his battle against death threats, assassination attempts and a crime syndicate that was fleecing the institution.
Let me know your thoughts and tip-offs by writing to heather@dailymaverick. co.za
Yours in defence of truth,
Heather