Armed with facts, State ready for Zuma
THE world is so full of ironies and how ironic that May 17 has been declared World Hypertension Day.
Hypertension or not, it is a Day of Reckoning or Judgement Day for our former president Jacob Zuma as it heralds the start of the Arms Deal trial whereby Zuma stands accused of fraud, racketeering, corruption and money laundering. The charges relate to alleged payments Zuma received, allegedly to protect the interests of French arms manufacturer, Thales.
It has taken many years and many hurdles for the State to finally make up a colossal prosecution bid. Included in the star-studded line-up will be Billy Downer who will lead the attack, ably assisted by a formidable team of senior counsel and prosecutors.
Downer has been coaxed out of retirement. One can only imagine that his opening preamble will be a train-stopper, visceral and Churchillian
in grandeur. It will without doubt be a gripping melange of courtroom drama.
Local and international media will roost in their eaves, feasting on the daily revelations in this epic saga – a spicy and jalapeno-hot bouillabaisse, not short on the condiments of chantage, graft, avaricious self-aggrandisement and unbridled ambition.
We will learn about how, through a series of share transactions, Nkobi Holdings, owned by Zuma’s then financial adviser, Schabir Shaik, merged with French company, Thomson-CSF, one of the largest arms companies in the world, to form Thomson Holdings, a South African company whose first joint venture was winning a government tender to provide new smart card technologies.
We will also hear how around September 1999, Alan Thetard, one of Thomson-CSF directors had allegedly agreed they should get Shaik to cover Zuma’s debts in exchange for Zuma’s protection from the commission investigating irregularities in the arms deals and ongoing support for any future Thomson-CSF deals with the SA government.
It was around this time that an encrypted fax surfaced, agreeing to pay Zuma R500 000 per annum. It also emerged during Shaik’s 2005 corruption trial he had loaned Zuma a total of R1.2 million which he considered as friendship fees. Shaik knew that Zuma would be made deputy president in the post-Mandela government so he was only too happy to play the cashcow role, knowing Nkobi will get all the government contracts. Zuma was indeed the deputy president when Thales allegedly offered the bribe in exchange for his political protection.
At some stage, Thales allegedly paid 1.2 million French francs into Shaik’s account in two separate payments to a Swiss bank. Some of that money was then allegedly transferred to Mac Maharaj’s wife, Zarina’s account. Enter Ajay Sooklal, the fixer lawyer who worked for Thales for six years.
He helped produce evidence implicating Zuma in the 1999 Arms Deal, and in 2018, made fresh allegations that during the deal, SA head of arms procurement, Chippy Shaik, was allegedly paid $1 million by Thales boss, Pierre Moynot. In 2014, Sooklal became known to the SA public as the middleman who allegedly arranged luxury accommodation in Europe, designer clothes and bags full of cash for Zuma.
The above are just some of the revelations which form part of the hierarchy of government’s gold-plated procurement programmes. Seduced by big money, our servants have turned into corporate whores where shadowy canals and power-mad conspiracies thrive. In the end, we may very well conclude that Zuma is an underachiever who over-estimated his own intelligence and convinced himself his failures were someone else’s fault.
I doubt this script will hold in its deck a “get out of jail” free card.
KEVIN GOVENDER | Shallcross