MY SIN? INTEGRITY
It was economic treason, says Trillian whistleblower
How do you write a book when you are unemployed for two years, have nine criminal charges against you, and your only sin is integrity and telling the truth?
Mosilo Mothepu, who has just published her book, Uncaptured, says she went through that and more and lived to tell the tale. It all came at a considerable cost, creating a “hellish” situation of unemployability that left her with R4 in her bank account, and deep psychological scars.
Exposing the Guptas and their lieutenants at finance firms Regiments and Trillian made her an enemy of the “Zuma state”, with the National Prosecuting Authority investigating trumped-up counter-charges against her. Her book tells a gripping story of being lured into Regiments Capital, and being captured with golden handcuffs, including multimillion-rand salaries.
She worked for Regiments Capital at its beginning, when it had five employees, which soon grew to 50. She left the company after a controversy-free first stint. The situation had entirely changed when she returned to Regiments. “Then they called me back ... [and said] we are working with McKinsey now; we are not 50, we are 250, and we have built this wonderful fivestorey headquarters at 35 Ferguson in Illovo. We have SAA, we’ve got SA Express, we’ve got Transnet, we’re negotiating with Eskom. And we want you because we know your track record, we want you to lead the Eskom team.”
The company made her an offer she could not refuse. “They seduced me with a carrot.” Her salary of R1.3m a year increased to R1.75m, with a R500,000 sign-on fee, soon followed with an R800,000 performance bonus.
“And McKinsey, at that time, before we knew [about] their little shenanigans, they were the top consulting firm in the world. And for me to hear that. It was intoxicating.”
McKinsey & Company was legally pursued for earning almost R1bn in dodgy contracts with state-owned enterprises (SOEs). It earned the praise of deputy chief justice Raymond Zondo, who commended the global firm for being a “responsible corporate citizen” after it announced it would pay back the fees.
Mothepu believes Regiments boss Eric Wood outpriced her so that she would have nowhere to go, she said. “He outpriced me, and I think that was his intention. He groomed me.” He expected loyalty from her.
“And he said to me, ‘Be loyal to me and I’ll reward you’. And he did reward me for my loyalty.
“But he didn’t bargain on the fact that I have integrity. And that I can leave. For the first time in my life, I left a job without the prospect of another job.”
The two were so close; he shared a lot of information with her. “I was just like a blonde, blue-eyed wonder. I was his girl. He took me everywhere. He took me to see Matshela Koko [at Eskom] ... So I was in his [Mercedes] C Class, air-conditioned ... he just told me everything. And everything was fun. Because at the time, I didn’t know how they got the contracts.”
The Regiments she returned to had an entirely new business model. “I asked him: ‘But what’s your secret? When I left, you couldn’t get Eskom work. You couldn’t get Transnet work. Now you’ve got probably all seven of the [SOEs in the] department of public enterprises portfolio. I call them the blue chip of the public sector.”
Regiments’ new strategy was anchored in its friendship with the Gupta brothers and their associate, Salim Essa, whom Mothepu calls “the fourth Gupta brother”, who is linked to the Guptas through Regiments and its offspring, consulting firm Trillian, as well as several controversial transactions, like the sale of the Tegeta mine. “It was moneylaundering, essentially ... and the Guptas were there.”
She saw how the company was billing millions of rands for work not done. It conspired with SOE managers for the invoices to be paid, although the firm did no work. “It was racketeering. It was organised crime,” she said.
There was more. She was informed of the dismissal of finance minister Nhlanhla Nene six months before it happened.
Her company pocketed handsomely from the information it used to play the bond market, she said. In a classic insider-trading case, it played the market using money it had access to through the Transnet Pension Fund.
“They made between R300m and R600m. And I’m sure you’ve read how the pensioners of Transnet are even struggling
to buy bread every day, and milk.”
Other incidents of shocking mafia-style operations included billing SOEs for millions of rands for merely sending proposals. Her senior colleague, Mohamed Bobat, became the adviser to Nene’s successor, Des van Rooyen. She was informed of this before it happened. It was clear there was a game plan.
“Mohamed Bobat is going to be our impimpi, our mole. So if there’s a tender that comes out, he’s going to give us the inside
information, the budget, the technical issues, so that when we submit our proposal, far above everybody else because we have this thing. And it was only supposed to be for three years because
Jacob Zuma’s term only had three years left.
“It was economic treason. They colluded together to syphon billions of rands and now it’s sitting in Dubai, and the Guptas are enjoying it. Salim Essa, Duduzane Zuma — did you see that video of him [on a speedboat] singing Madonna? He was singing Madonna’s La Isla Bonita (The Beautiful Island). And he’s sitting there with our billions.”
Accounts of the Guptas and their associates living it up irk her. “So I hear that Salim Essa spends like R32,000 on lunch every day, sitting by the Dubai Marina.
That’s where our money is. Now we can’t have vaccines. We can’t have school sanitation because the money is there. And it was the president, the ministers, the boards, the executives who enabled it.”
Mothepu blew the whistle on Regiments and Trillian. She gave crucial information to public protector Thuli Madonsela, who was investigating complaints that Zuma had handed power to the Guptas.
Madonsela’s investigation led to the appointment of the Zondo commission.
Mothepu’s whistleblowing unleashed “hell” for her. Whistleblowers do not get the support they need in SA. They become outcasts, and without support, except from a few good Samaritans, she says with tears rolling down her cheeks. Only a handful of people offered support and helped her.
Among her debts was a R1.3m legal bill, which she racked up as she fended off charges laid by her former colleagues to intimidate her. She almost lost her home.
Her book is the outcome of “my trials and tribulations, which I call hell. How do you write a book when you are unemployed for two years, have nine criminal charges and your only sin is integrity and telling the truth?”
Writing her story is part of her life’s purpose and she hopes to inspire others. “That purpose is to inspire, to embolden any person going through anything, cancer, divorce. If at all you are conflicted — ‘Do I do right? Or do I do wrong? Do I say nothing?’ — when you believe in your cause, you will not be popular.”
The drive is more significant than the consequences, she says.
“They are mental, psychological, financial, but at the end of the day, nothing worth fighting for in life is easy. So that is why I decided to write my book.”
It was moneylaundering, essentially. It was racketeering. It was organised crime
✼Listen to Sam Mkokeli interviewing Mosilo Mothepu on Sundaytimes.co.za