Deputy president Paul Mashatile’s effort to iron out the creases in his reputation is not going well. You’ll remember that Mashatile was elected ANC deputy president at the party’s conference last December and he really squeaked in, helped, according to the conventional wisdom, by a push from disgraced former health minister Zweli Mkhize.
There was also a split vote opposing him. President Cyril Ramaphosa, displaying his unusual talent for picking the wrong people, had wanted Eastern Cape premier Oscar Mabuyane on his slate as deputy, probably playing an ethnic card to the Xhosa vote. But young Ronald Lamola, who probably will be president one day, also put his hand up and could not be persuaded to put it down again.
It was close. Mashatile got 2,178 votes in December. Mabuyane got 1,858 and Lamola just 315 but combined, Mabuyane and Lamola were just three short of Mashatile. It was probably a lucky escape for Ramaphosa as Mabuyane, who has done little to improve the state of his own province, has since been called out by the University of Fort Hare for trying to falsify his qualifications for a master’s degree.
Mashatile though brings some hefty baggage as well and, despite doing his best, he is not rid of it. He made the mistake of giving Carol Paton an exclusive interview in the wake of a string of revelations by News24 about his lifestyle and a predisposition to living off other people’s money. On the record, Paton can be devastating. She asked him straightforward questions and none of his answers were convincing. It just made him look weaker.
He lived for months at a time in the palatial Clifton (Cape Town) home of Edwin Sodi, a “consultant” and property developer currently out on bail of R500,000 for his alleged role in the Free State asbestos tender fraud and another R150,000 on an attempted murder charge. He now occupies a R37m house bought by his son-in-law and a son who do work with the state.
Mashatile told Paton that Sodi and other benefactors were merely friends and had been for years. But, Paton asked, “Do you see the ethical problem and the political risk of a person in your position being funded by benefactors and friends?”
“Well, none of them are funding me,” Mashatile answered. “They have funded the ANC but not me, personally. When Sodi went before the Zondo commission he was asked why he had recorded giving money to Paul Mashatile. But the account where that money went was an ANC Gauteng account. So there is no friend who is funding me personally.”
Not quite. The Zondo commission into state capture found no evidence Sodi intended the money go to the ANC, exposing Mashatile to the not unreasonable suspicion, as Sodi had documented, that it went to our now deputy president.
A closer look at the payments to Mashatile from Sodi (allegedly meant for the ANC) is revealing. What stands out about the following (long) list of payments from Sodi to Mashatile, listed by judge Raymond Zondo, now the chief justice?: R10,000 on February 25 2015; R10,000 on April 1 2015; R10,000 on May 10 2015; R112,118.37 on May 24 2015; R10,000 on June 1 2015; R10,000 on June 30 2015; R10,000 on July 29 2015; R10,000 on September 2 2015; R30,000 on September 15 2015; R10,000 on September 30 2015; R10,000 on October 30 2015; R10,000 on December 3 2015; R10,000 on Christmas Day 2015; R10,000 on February 1 2016; R50,000 on September 23 2016 and R59,435.50 on September 13 2018.
The same Sodi made payments of R2.9m and R3.5m in February and April 2014 to Mkhize when he was treasurer-general of the ANC. The same explanation — that these were payments to the ANC, not Mkhize (or not all of it to Mkhize) — has at least a ring of plausibility about it. But a string of R10,000 payments to Mashatile in 2015 precede him becoming Gauteng human settlements MEC, when the two final, and slightly bigger, payments are made. The R112,000 number aside, it is the regular, smaller payments that make no sense. They are barely pocket money to someone like Mashatile. And if you can give the ANC treasurer-general R6m, why pay the party another measly R10,000 a month through Paul Mashatile?
The more persuasive explanation is that the money from Sodi (who also paid unexplained amounts to Zizi Kodwa, now Ramaphosa’s minister of sports, arts & culture; Thulas Nxesi, his minister of labour; and Pinky Kekana, a deputy minister in Ramaphosa’s presidency) was either a retainer or a favour. Either way it ruinously compromises Mashatile’s integrity and his independence until he adequately explains what he did with the money.
All of it. Whether you take R1 or R1m from someone who needs your help to make more money, you owe that person. People who took money from the Guptas know that now. Why the National Prosecuting Authority is not seized with payments like these to the deputy president is a mystery.
It is a pity Zondo never subjected Mashatile to proper cross-examination. The hearings into state capture had bigger fish to fry back then, but he turns out to be a rather large stone left unturned.
This article has been corrected so that the R11,211,837 payment cited is correctly transcribed as R112,118.37.
• Bruce is a former editor of Business Day and the Financial Mail.
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