The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) says it has discovered additional payments made to former president Jacob Zuma by his ex-financial adviser Schabir Shaik. This will require it to update one of its most crucial pieces of evidence in Zuma’s upcoming corruption trial: the forensic report into his finances.
The state’s revelations about the additional payments are a clear indication from the NPA that it has engaged with evidence it intended to lead against Zuma 15 years ago. But the questions raised by Zuma’s lawyers about the report, which painstakingly examines his apparent inability to manage his own finances, clearly also indicates that they are preparing, finally, to directly engage with the merits of the case against him.
The revelations also suggest the level of Zuma’s dependence on benefactors for financial survival was more profound than originally thought.
The exact amount of these additional payments remains unknown, but lead Zuma prosecutor Billy Downer has confirmed, in a letter to newly appointed Zuma attorney Eric Mabuza, that they have been included in a revised report on Zuma’s finances by forensic investigator Johan van der Walt.
“The additional payments are dealt with in the report,” Downer states.
Van der Walt, whose evidence on behalf of audit firm KPMG played a significant role in Shaik’s conviction for corrupting Zuma, made headlines for all the wrong reasons after the findings and conclusions contained in his report on the much-disputed “Sars rogue unit” were formally withdrawn by KPMG.
The report, commissioned by former SA Revenue Service (Sars) commissioner Tom Moyane, had suggested that public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan, when he was Sars commissioner, “ought to have known of the existence of the unit”. The report’s authors found no evidence, however, that Gordhan had been informed of the existence of the unit.
When it withdrew the report’s findings, KPMG explicitly stated that “the evidence in the documentation provided to KPMG South Africa does not support the interpretation that Mr Gordhan knew, or ought to have known, of the ‘rogue’ nature of this unit”.
Despite that furore, the state has not abandoned Van der Walt as one of its most pivotal witnesses in its case against Zuma and French arms company Thales. Downer has, however, confirmed that Van der Walt’s massive investigation into Zuma’s finances, which revealed that his benefactors included former president Nelson Mandela, has been compiled under the name of his new firm, FTI Consulting.
“The state intends to call state witness Mr Van der Walt to present the FTI report as evidence during the state’s case. He will not present his old KPMG report, which has become redundant as he has revised it,” Downer states.
Correspondence between Mabuza and Downer makes it clear that the state is determined to proceed with its fraud, corruption, racketeering and tax evasion case against Zuma and Thales as soon as possible.
Downer has urged the Zuma defence team to make formal requests for information they need about the case to ensure it is able to run without interruption. It appears Mabuza will take him up on the invitation.
During Shaik’s criminal trial, it emerged that he had paid R888,527 to Zuma over the years in various ways — repairing his cars, paying school fees for his children, paying his bond, buying him clothes and even giving him R15,000 in Christmas spending money in 1997. He was also convicted of soliciting a R500,000-a-year bribe for Zuma from Thales, in exchange for the then deputy president’s “political protection” from any potential inquiry into the controversial arms deal.
Following raids on properties belonging to Zuma and his lawyers, the then Scorpions seized about 93,000 documents that Van der Walt then used to compile a 2006 audit into Zuma’s finances. That report revealed that Zuma continued to receive money from Shaik even after he was charged and convicted, with the benefits he received from Shaik totalling more than R4m.
Zuma remains adamant that these benefits were gifts or loans and not bribes.
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