Table Of ContentPublished by Penguin Books
an imprint of Penguin Random House South Africa (Pty) Ltd
Reg. No. 1953/000441/07
The Estuaries No. 4, Oxbow Crescent, Century Avenue, Century City, 7441
PO Box 1144, Cape Town, 8000, South Africa
www.penguinrandomhouse.co.za
First published 2019
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Publication © Penguin Random House 2019
Text © Pieter-Louis Myburgh 2019
Cover photograph © Gallo Images/Foto24 /Charl Devenish All rights reserved. No part of this
publication may be reproduced,stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by
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written permission of the copyright owners.
PUBLISHER: Marlene Fryer
MANAGING EDITOR: Robert Plummer
EDITOR: Bronwen Maynier
PROOFREADER: Lisa Compton
COVER DESIGNER: Ryan Africa
INDEXER: Sanet le Roux
ISBN 978 1 77609 374 8 (print) ISBN 978 1 77609 375 5 (ePub)
For the journalists, whistleblowers, sources and activists who have
fought and continue to fight to turn the tide.
Contents
Contents
Introduction
Prologue: Death of a Bentley bagman
Part I: Credential struggles
1. The Tumahole ‘treasonist’
2. Hillbrow days
3. Exile
Part II: Premier in waiting
4. An early scandal
5. Free State capture and the ‘cattle thief’
6. Crushing the Scorpions
7. The assassination of Noby Ngombane
Part III: The R1-billion housing splurge
8. ‘Bring your people’
9. Fall guys and fat cats
10. Rewarding friends and punishing foes
PART IV: Iron fist
11. Regime unchanged
12. Fourth estate capture
Part V: All the president’s pals
13. Tea with Atul
14. A family of fixers
15. Reddy to rumble
16. Zuma’s Vrede ‘thank-you fee’
PART VI: Daddy’s girl
17. The R9-million freebie
18. Vogelfontein
19. Paved with gold
PART VII: The IgoFiles
20. Enter Igo
21. Plunder plot
22. A blueprint for bribes
23. Havana nights
24. Ace shows his hand
25. The ANC’s asbestos benefits
26. Zizi
27. The last cash run
28. ‘Ace’s girls’
PART VIII: Top Six fix
29. Nas(w)rec(k)
30. New dawn, old guard
Photos
Acknowledgements
Notes
Abbreviations
Index
Introduction
One Friday evening in mid-2013 my cellphone rang just as I was about
to put a few takeaway pizzas in my car. I had been working at a
Sunday newspaper in Johannesburg and it was not unusual to get
work-related calls over the weekend. Not recognising the number
flashing on my phone’s screen, I hesitated. It had been a long week and
I was looking forward to enjoying hot pizza and a few beers with
friends. But curious journalists rarely ignore phone calls, so I
answered. The person on the other end of the line introduced himself
as Ace Magashule, the premier of the Free State.
My first thought was that someone was playing a prank on me, but I
soon realised it was indeed him. At the time, I was researching a tender
awarded to a Bloemfontein-based company for organising the annual
South African Sport Awards. The company’s owner was said to be
closely connected to top government leaders and had apparently
clinched the contract in an irregular manner. While Magashule and his
provincial government did not feature in the story,1 I may have sent out
queries to officials regarding the company’s work in the Free State.
Magashule had somehow got word of my interest in the contractor and
had decided to give me a call. I don’t recall verbatim what was said,
but he tried to convince me that his administration and the company in
question had nothing to hide.
The call was strange, to say the least. Top-level government leaders do
not normally contact young, relatively unknown journalists, at least not
directly. I got the sense that Magashule was worried about what I
might uncover. I also think he wanted me to know that he was aware
that I was looking into the matter. I later learnt that, over the years,
Magashule contacted other journalists in a similar fashion. To me, this
conduct betrayed a degree of nervousness about the media’s interest in
his province’s affairs. His apparent habit of contacting reporters also
carried a hint of subtle intimidation. At least one Free State journalist I
spoke to claimed to have abandoned an investigation into a provincial
tender after receiving such a call.
Magashule had every reason to be worried about nosy journalists. I
believe the government deals unpacked in this book, along with
previous revelations, sufficiently implicate him as the head of a well-
organised state-capture network in his home province.
Compared to the most prominent tender bandits in national
government, however, Magashule’s anxiety must have been
considerably more manageable during his stint as premier. For a start,
Jacob Zuma’s time in charge of the country saw government’s law-
enforcement arm become as ineffective as a gangrened limb. There was
no need for the likes of Magashule to be concerned about being
investigated or brought to book. Media outlets, civil society
organisations and the general public, meanwhile, were largely focused
on scandals involving Zuma, his state-capture enablers and rent-
seeking at national departments and large state-owned companies such
as Transnet and Eskom. Public-sector looters and their private-sector
accomplices in provinces like the Free State were left to execute their
schemes without drawing too much attention. While there have been
great examples of investigative work on Magashule and his
administration over the years, such reports have been too sporadic to
produce the sustained outrage and pressure necessary to bring about
meaningful change.
