‘I was not raised that way’
On Saturday September 17, I went to Pretoria to see the Public Protector. This prompted another of those surreal internal conversations.
Where am I going? What am I going to tell her? Which car should I take?
I drove an Audi A3. Vusi had a Range Rover. I decided to take his car, on the basis that it was probably safer in the event of an assassination attempt.
Assassination! How did I get from apolitical finance professional to someone fearing for her life?
I made it to Lynnwood in Pretoria without incident. I was to meet Thuli at a restaurant. I suspect she didn’t trust that her office was safe from bugs. The restaurant had two floors and she had booked the upper floor. Her team was working on laptops, four or five guys just typing away.
I was offered a seat and something to eat or drink. My stomach was in knots; there was no way I could eat. I asked for rooibos tea and water and waited about 10 minutes until Thuli was free.
I introduced myself and Thuli thanked me for coming; she told me I was very brave. Thuli had a gentle manner. I had such admiration for her; she was like a goddess to me. It was unfortunate that we had to meet under such circumstances, but even so, I knew I was in the company of greatness.
Most importantly, I trusted her to deal with the explosive and potentially dangerous information I was about to reveal. I handed her my statement and spent about 20 minutes giving her a broad summary of what I had experienced. Then she handed me over to two of her investigators and asked me to please take them through the whole statement, which I did.
When we finished, they gave her feedback and she thanked me and told me her team would be in touch. I explained that I was back in Johannesburg for a week and would be available should they want more information.
Feeling rather childish and awkward, I asked the Public Protector if I could take a selfie with her. She graciously agreed and I took the selfie, which I still treasure. As I got ready to leave, I asked her if I could trust Pravin Gordhan. She said yes, I could trust him.
I also told her that I feared for my life — I was about to expose politically connected people and implicate the president of the country. She told me that based on the seriousness of the allegations in the amaBhungane and Sunday Times articles, she was able to say she was going to investigate, thus removing my fingerprints from the proverbial crime scene. It was an elegant way of dealing with Regiments and Trillian without mentioning my name, or even the existence of a whistleblower.
As soon as I got home, I texted Pravin Gordhan’s adviser, Gene, and arranged to meet the next day at the Hussar Grill at the Morningside Shopping Centre.
I found Gene sitting in a deep, highbacked booth in the far corner of the restaurant. He saw me and gave a discreet wave. As I slipped into the booth, I felt as if I was in an espionage movie. He told me that the minister had asked that I take him through the statement. Over a bottle of Merlot, I told him about Trillian and the invoices and the SOE payments without contracts. I told him that I knew in March already that the president wanted to fire minister Gordhan, and that I suspected these fraud allegations were designed to make him step down.
Over a second bottle, Gene told me about his time working at SARS. He was among those accused of being part of the so-called SARS Rogue Unit. There was no such unit — it was the invention of a corrupt few trying to get rid of those honest individuals at SARS who stood up against corruption.
Gene’s was a painful, heartfelt story about a man of integrity who had refused to allow an institution to be destroyed by state capture. He spoke of the depression and insomnia that he had suffered as a result. How it had affected his family and his livelihood. I recognised the parallels between his story and my own, although, in the case of the Rogue Unit, the media was initially positioned against him.
Later that afternoon, Fran, one of the investigators from Thuli’s office, asked to meet to go over the details. We met in the lounge at the Alice Lane Virgin Active. For every claim I made, he needed a document to substantiate it. Fortunately, I had all the e-mails I had forwarded to my Gmail account.
Fran went through my statement in detail. “You say Eric sent you a National Treasury document on this day; send it to me.”
I sent it.
“You say Eskom paid R30.6m without a contract. Send me the invoice.”
I sent it.
We worked until Virgin Active closed and then went to my house, where we sat at my diningroom table and opened a bottle of wine — yes, there’s a lot of wine in this tale; I understand Dutch courage. He left at two o’clock in the morning.
It was intense, but after I had given the information to the Public Protector and the finance minister’s office, I felt that I had shared a burden that I had previously shouldered alone.
Despite this sense of relief, I was still apprehensive about my safety. I knew that if my name was mentioned in Thuli’s final report, I would be exposed and possibly endangered. With Vusi in Cairo, I lived alone and didn’t have the resources for personal protection.
I had a few more days in Johannesburg. I saw my sister and brother, and some friends and industry colleagues. I told no-one my reason for being in town. I went back to Cairo the following weekend, feeling relieved and proud of myself. I hadn’t allowed fear to dictate my actions, because I was not raised that way. I felt I had contributed to rooting out corruption and to the survival of our democracy. Nelson Mandela and Vusi had fought for this democracy and it was being stolen by three Indian brothers and some corrupt comrades who had sold their souls for cash.