The President's Keepin' the Money

picture credit: Moneyweb

I decided to take a break from the violent nature of our society and delve into something that caught the attention of millions over a week ago.

I don’t like politics and as the blog description says, I am looking at things in the motherland from the point of view of an everyday person, trying to make a living here. If I had the means, I would probably fokkof - but with government stealing all the tax money, I will ma just perish in this country with the rest of you broke people. 

And being broke was a risk I took when I left a well-paid customer service job and chased my dream of becoming a writer.  But while doing my magazine journalism course I  never thought I’d get caught up in politics. (Discussing politics is off limits on weekends) But writing ‘fun stuff’ didn’t come easy because I felt I needed to be true to myself. I am after all in the business of ‘helping people’.  Well, here I am - And today I help you realise how screwed we all are.

The problem I have with politics is that it seems more about strategy than it is about people. But one would think that since we live in a Democracy the strategies are supposed to be in the best interest of the people or the country, no?

No.

There are rather deep pockets to fill.

Mugabe was placed under house arrest this week. Why won’t our military put Jacob in one of Nkandla’s remote controlled chicken Coups? We are well aware about the state of affairs so everywhere people are complaining.  Like Cape Town rappers - all we do is moan. And protest. And burn kak. And before you go EFF, you throw kak. Whichever way you look at it – the country is going to shit. And your ministers are wys – but nobody will open their bek.

One person who wasn’t pussy to open his bek is Jacques Pauw. The President’s Keepers have landed him into a shit load of trouble but he did it anyway. And he had his umbrella ready if shit hit the fan - as it did. I would give all the tax money that Zuma stole -and owes - to bail the man out should he get locked up. This would also confirm that the allegations in the book are absolutely true. And I believe it even more with every page. I am hanging on this book as if I am a newborn and it is my mother’s lactating bosom.  Nutritious!

I haven’t done reading yet but things are playing out like an episode of The Fixer (Scandal). Government spies, code named files and getting rid of people - all in the name of greed. And it’s all happening right HERE.

 I wonder how long it’s going to take Lifetime to make a badly written film about this. I wonder if Zuma will be in the same predicament as Oscar when his movie airs – behind bars.

Anyway, for those of you who have not laid hands on the book, below are a few quotes I extracted for you to gasp at. The PAN was exposed in 2014 so some of this may sound familiar:

“The auditors at Route 21 had hit upon enough discrepancies and scams to report back to their superiors that the PAN programme was riddled with wastage, corruption and nepotism and warranted a full-scale investigation.”

“One of the first breakthroughs the PAN investigators made was when they discovered that the signature of Ronnie Kasrils had been copied and pasted onto a document that gave birth to the programme. The document was co-signed by director-general Manala Manzini, operations director Arthur Fraser, Covert Support Unit (CSU) operations manager Prince Makhwathana, and CSU financial officer Martie Wallace. It authorised the PAN top structure to identify projects and targets of national interest, appoint assets (agents and spies), purchase cars, lease safe houses and incur whatever cost was necessary to get the venture off the ground.”

“One of the first to confess her connivance in wrongdoing was Martie Wallace, the financial officer at the CSU (Wallace was her “agent” name). She made an affidavit and said that both her brother and her husband were appointed as PAN agents. She admitted that she had taken R1.2 million in cash, bought a townhouse and registered the property in her brother's name. The property was then leased back to PAN – for R1.2 million!”

“With Wallace on board and singing, skeletons tumbled out. Several SSA officials had resigned and were reappointed as PAN agents at a much higher salary. One of them registered a company and got R18 million in cash to buy six upmarket properties – including in Waterkloof in Pretoria – and leased them back to PAN.”

“As far as the appointment of agents was concerned, the investigators found wide-scale financial mismanagement, fruitless expenditure, nepotism and corruption”. Makhwathana had signed the employment contracts of the 72 PAN agents, although he did not have the authority to do so. The salary bill came to R33 million annually, which amounted to almost R40 000 per agent per month. After PAN had purchased 293 vehicles for their 72 agents, they needed warehouses to store them. They entered into an agreement with a private company that belonged to Arthur Fraser's brother, Barry. PAN paid him R24 million for the rental of the warehouse. Some of cars had been unused for almost four years. There were other Fraser family members working for PAN. Arthur's son Lyle became the floor manager at the warehouse while his mother, Ms C.F. Fraser, was also a PAN agent. Both Barry Fraser and Ms Fraser were board members of a community-based organisation that dealt with conflict resolution at schools. PAN contributed R10 million towards the organisation although it had nothing to do with national security.”