Johannesburg - Former Transnet executive and state capture-accused Iqbal Sharma has made an offer to the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) that he is available to be interviewed on the contents of his affidavit that is before the Bloemfontein High Court implicating politicians and other big business leaders in the “real” state capture.

Sharma said he was not aware of whether the NPA had any intention to interrogate his allegations, but he was certain the prosecuting body had sight of the document containing not only explosive allegations but the accompanying evidence as well.

“They would have had sight when we filed our papers in July 2022,” he said. “I would be keen on an interview. The entire Transnet board of 2010-2014 should be interviewed as everything in my affidavit is known by all the former board members. We made these discoveries together.”

The affidavit, made under oath, was originally prepared to assist the State Capture Commission of Inquiry headed by Chief Justice Raymond Zondo, but it never made it to the commission’s final report. There were also no indications whether Zondo even considered its contents.

The document implicates, among others, Transnet board members from 2006/7, Thuli Madonsela, Mafika Mkhwanazi, Sybrand Pretorious, the late Don Mkhwanazi and SA Shipyards, as well as the 2006/7 Bidvest board. Attempts to get comments from the other parties drew a blank as they did not respond to questions sent.

The affidavit details Transnet tender irregularities between the government, private sector directors and companies doing business with the state. As Sharma stated in the affidavit, in one instance, Transnet allegedly favoured Bidvest to win tenders. Bidvest and Transnet may have committed fraud, he alleged.

In a second instance, Transnet and the Public Protector’s office allegedly conspired to squash and not execute a forensic report initiated by Madonsela. In a third instance, the acting chairperson of the Board Acquisitions and Disposals Committee (BADC) approved a tender award for SA Shipyards for more than R1 billion for the supply of tug boats.

This was allegedly done despite a decision taken to wait for the outcome of a forensic investigation into the transaction. The forensic investigation, once concluded, found that SA Shipyards was favoured.

Sharma’s allegations are yet to be tested in the Bloemfontein High Court. Those mentioned in the affidavit have questioned it as well as the intent. Asked if she was aware of the affidavit, Madonsela said this was a bizarrely drafted affidavit, saying she did not understand what Sharma was alleging.

“Why my name and my term as Public Protector are invoked is quite baffling, to say the least. The mention of my name and Public Protector investigation during my time seems pointless, quite gratuitous really,” she said.

Madonsela said: “The heading covering everything from paragraph 87 is Public Protector Report. Paragraph 87 talks about the commencement of an investigation. Paragraph 97 says the Public Protector did nothing about her own report. Paragraph 98 says the current Public Protector says there is no record of such an investigation. Firstly, if there ever was a report, it would be on Hansard, Public Protector Annual Report, its newsletter, and in the public domain. It would be impossible to scrub that.”

She said all she could say was that the affidavit dragged her name into its narrative for reasons only known to the author (Sharma), adding that she would be surprised if the judge made sense of it.

Mkhwanazi said he had seen the affidavit and would not challenge it because it was not factual.

Pretorious said: “I could find no reference to me in Mr Sharma’s affidavit. I am not surprised as I was not involved in the acquisition of Viamax by Bidvest in 2007 or 2008. At the time, I was the chief executive officer of McCarthy Limited, which became Bid Auto, a division of Bidvest, after they acquired us in 2004. I retired in March 2011.”

SA Shipyards chief financial officer Akash Singh said the company denied the allegations and did not wish to comment further because “we do not wish to be caught as a business in a factional political battle. If a need arises to challenge this legally, we shall do so”.

Some of those implicated have gone on to enjoy lucrative careers in state entities such as the Public Investment Corporation and Reserve Bank, among others.

Sharma said his appeals to look into the seemingly biased and exclusionary nature of the State Capture Commission of Inquiry have been roadblocked by non-responses from the NPA. On January 5, the NPA’s Sindisiwe Twala received the Sunday Independent’s questions regarding Sharma’s affidavit following the publication of the article in December, titled “Zondo exposed: What the commission did not want SA to know”.

Twala referred questions to her colleague Mthunzi Mhaga, saying that she was on leave until the week of January 10. Mhaga also did not respond to the clarity-seeking query sent both to his mobile number as well as email.

On January 12, Twala requested the Sunday Independent to escalate the query to the head of communications Bulelwa Makeke. Makeke said on the same day that Mhaga was back at work from leave and he would attend to the query.

Last week, the Sunday Independent copied the NPA media director Isaac Dhludhlu to the same query, as advised by Makeke, but even that yielded no results as the deadline passed once again with the NPA remaining mum.

Sharma’s affidavit includes the 2007 sale of Transnet asset Viamax to Bidvest for R1bn and Transnet’s subsequent repurchase of the same services from Bidvest for R2.5bn. The affidavit also detailed a 2012 forensic investigation report on tender irregularities and abuse of power in Transnet that disappeared in the hands of the office of the public protector.

According to Sharma, the resultant transactions of the Bidvest deal proved to be very profitable for Bidvest’s meteoric growth. To date, the Bidvest-Viamax deal has scarcely been reported on, and no official inquiry has been made into the disposal and subsequent procurement of fleet services, despite there being no formalised tender process adhered to.

The contents may explain why Sharma never appeared before the state capture commission of inquiry. No findings were made against him either. The commission’s lead investigator Terence Nombembe had received the almost 1000-page affidavit with evidence attached.

The document landed in the public domain as part of Sharma’s defence of fraud charges in the Bloemfontein High Court. Since the beginning of the year, the NPA has avoided questions on what legal options the agency had, if any, to test Sharma’s allegations – reinforcing perceptions that the prosecuting authority would grow cold feet when it was expected to confront alleged acts of wrongdoing implicating members of the current ANC administration.

Sharma was a director of Transnet from December 2010 to October 2014. He served on the BADC and the Corporate Governance Committee. In August 2012, he became head of the BADC.

Sharma was arrested last year in connection with the R25 million feasibility study in the Free State that acted as a prosecutor to the R288m Estina diary project scandal. He is among a group of 17 accused facing charges of contravening the Public Finance Management Act, fraud, and money laundering.

Sharma appeared for a trial with the other accused and three companies to account for their involvement in the alleged R25 million feasibility study “scam”. The accused include former Free State head of the Department for Rural Development, Peter Thabethe, former head of the Free State Department of Agriculture Limakatso Moorosi, the department’s former chief financial officer Seipati Dhlamini, and Islandsite director Ronica Ragavan.

The companies indicted include Nulane, which is owned by Sharma, and Islandsite Investment One Hundred and Eighty.

Sharma, through his legal representative Bronwynne Forbay, pleaded not guilty for himself and his company. According to Forbay, Sharma has chosen to reserve his right to remain silent and not convey his version until witnesses take the stand.

Sunday Independent