Hard-hitting report fingers Guptas in Transnet kickbacks

The investigative journalism
team amaBhungane has
presented strong evidence
that the Gupta family and
their close associate, Salim
Essa, have been involved in
money-laundering schemes
totalling R250 million.
This money, it said, came
from kickbacks for contracts
with state-owned companies
– including Transnet, SAA,
Airports Company of SA
(Acsa) and Eskom.
And one of the stateowned
enterprises (SOEs)
from which large amounts
were squeezed was Transnet.
“On the Transnet board,”
said the team’s report,
“individuals who have been
linked to the Guptas or
Essa include chairperson
Linda Mabaso, chief
financial officer Garry Pita,
procurement committee
chair Stanley Shane, and
member Vusi Nkonyane.
Iqbal Sharma, a previous
procurement committee
chair, was also close to Essa.”
However, said
amaBhungane: “In some
instances these links are
circumstantial and there is
no suggestion of wrongdoing
against any individual.”
In its lengthy, complex and
hard-hitting report the team
pointed out that its research
had revealed this R250m
being channelled through
the SA company, Homix (“a
letterbox company”, said
amaBhungane, with “little
but a mailing address”).
Much of this, it added,
through Bapu Trading,
another hole-in-the-wall
company, to equally obscure
companies in Hong Kong
– with all the participants
having links to the Guptas
and associates.
Meanwhile, five companies
– all doing business one
way or another with SOEs
– were alleged to have paid
kickbacks for contracts
over to Homix and it was
then laundered, according
to amaBhungane. And, the
team’s journalist, Stefaans
Brummer, told the 24-hour
television news broadcaster,
eNCA, that the “evidence of
the laundering was strong”.
In what it termed a “set of
fingerprints” it noted that
the companies that had paid
the bulk of the money to
Homix during the six months
of bank records “have two
things in common – Transnet
money and the name ‘Gupta’
or ‘Essa’ somewhere in their
stories”.
The companies named
were Neotel, Cutting
Edge Commerce, Sechaba
Computer Services,
Regiments Capital and
Burlington Strategy
Advisors.
According to
amaBhungane, the Gupta
family chose to answer its
questions through their partowned
ANN7 TV station.
In a statement read out on
air, the family called the
allegations “historical, flawed
inferences” and accused
amaBhungane of being an
“unofficial judiciary in the
court of public opinion”.
The team added that a
spokesperson for Transnet
had not replied to all its
questions but had said
contracts it had awarded
“followed our stringent
governance requirements”.
He also told
amaBhungane that
Neotel had formally
advised Transnet that its
investigation “revealed no
wrongdoing or corruption
by any Transnet executive.
There is therefore no basis
for suggesting impropriety
or breach of our governance
procedures by the company
or any individual…”
Whatever, this report
definitely added more
muscle and hard evidence to
the ever-growing accusations
of “state capture”. And it
involved at least three stateowned
members of SA’s
freight industry.