Hawks confirm Zuma probe over capture
Former GCIS head testifies on threats if he did not do what they asked
The Hawks have confirmed there is an “ongoing” criminal investigation against former president Jacob Zuma and Ajay Gupta – linked to former government communications (GCIS) head Themba Maseko’s state capture allegations.
“The case is ongoing and new facts have been found,” Hawks spokesperson Hangwani Mulaudzi told Sowetan sister publication TimesLIVE, adding “to say the case has been put to bed is not true”.
Mulaudzi’s comment is the first time the
Hawks have publicly confirmed Zuma is under criminal investigation for alleged “state capture” corruption.
Mulaudzi was responding to Maseko’s testimony to the state capture inquiry where he said he was informed by the Hawks in April that they were considering unidentified charges against Zuma and Ajay Gupta.
Maseko alleged that both Zuma and Gupta tried to pressure him into channeling GCIS’s R600m advertising budget to the family’s media organisations back in 2010
“Around April 2018, I got a call from the Hawks requesting a meeting with me to take the matter forward. They informed me that the matter had been handed over from Captain Govender to a new team of investigators, who were now preparing to take the matter to court… possibly charging Mr Ajay Gupta and [former] president Zuma, and they just wanted to go through the two affidavits I had made in preparation for that matter.
“I was given the impression that they were actually getting ready to proceed with the case. But a few weeks after that exchange, they then came back to me to inform me that my matter was no longer going to be followed through… The words they used was that the matter has been put in abeyance… I should relax.” Maseko also testified that, following his highly publicised claims that Zuma asked him to “help” the Guptas, he became the subject of a Hawks investigation focused on a tender awarded 13 years ago.
Following a Sunday Times report on the possibility of a investigation into this tender, Maseko said he was contacted by recently appointed Hawks head Gen Godfrey Lebeya, who initially said the unit had no record of such an investigation. Lebeya subsequently contacted the officers working on this investigation which was opened “before his time”.
According to Maseko, the case is with the National Prosecuting Authority, which has yet to decide whether he should be charged or not. Evidence leader Vincent Maleka said the commission’s investigators were trying to establish the status of the case.
“It is unfortunate that a witness would have a cloud hanging over him regarding a matter that occurred 13 years ago.” Maseko responded that the investigation was “a distraction”.
In his testimony, Maseko revealed that he was contacted by Gupta patriarch Ajay in “September, October 2010”.
“I received a call from Ajay Gupta requesting a meeting to discuss a new project he said needed government support …”
Maseko said there were, at the time, rumours that the family intended to “get into the media space”. He said there were already perceptions the Guptas were using their connections and influence with senior politicians to extract tenders from government departments and state-owned enterprises.
He earlier told the inquiry that what transpired at that meeting, which he will detail today, was “inappropriate”.
“Making demands, summoning me to their house, and threatening that if I don’t do what they are asking of me, I will be dealt with. I found that inappropriate, irregular and uncalled for.”