Former public enterprises minister Malusi Gigaba has been formally charged with corruption linked to controversial multi-billion-rand Transnet tenders for locomotives.
Gigaba appeared before the Palm Ridge Specialised Commercial Crime Court on Tuesday along with his co-accused — former Transnet CFO Anoj Singh, former Transnet group CEO turned MK Party MP Brian Molefe, former Transnet chief procurement officer Thamsanqa Jiyane and Siyabonga Gama.
“The state alleges that, during the period that Dr Gigaba was the minister of DPE [department of public enterprises], he on various occasions allegedly accepted and received undisclosed amounts of cash from members of the Gupta family which are corrupt in nature, and which he was not entitled to,” Investigating Directorate Against Corruption (Idac) spokesperson Henry Mamothame said.
Some of the companies that won the tenders allegedly scored the big contracts after paying kickbacks to companies linked to the Guptas.
One of these companies was Chinese locomotive supplier CRRC E-Loco Supply (CRRC), which Transnet alleges in court papers paid bribes to Regiments and Tequesta, companies owned by controversial businessman Salim Essa.
Essa is linked to the Gupta family that is accused of looting government coffers using their connection to senior politicians during former president Jacob Zuma’s tenure.
During the state capture commission led by former chief justice Raymond Zondo, Gigaba was painted as one of the “Gupta” ministers. He has for years rejected the accusations.
In its move to charge him, Idac linkeds the allegations to his tenure as the minister overseeing state entities at the time.
“Dr Gigaba’s court appearance relates to a period between November 2010 [and] May 2014, when the alleged offences were committed during his tenure as the minister in the department of public enterprises,” Mamothame said.
“The accused’s court appearance emanates from the period in which Transnet engaged in the process of acquiring locomotives to expand and modernise the country’s rail infrastructure, during which the tender processes were flouted, and three contracts were irregularly awarded to provide Transnet with 95, 100 and 1064 locomotives in three different contracts, resulting in a loss of billions of rands for Transnet.”
Gigaba has pushed back against the allegations against him, arguing no evidence has been presented to substantiate them.
“Let me declare that I have full confidence in our courts — they are the forums where facts, not fiction, will finally prevail. My confidence is built on irrefutable evidence and a commitment to full transparency,” he said.
The locomotive tenders have been a controversial issue.
The Pretoria high court recently barred CRRCfrom selling or disposing of spare parts that could bring 120 grounded locomotives to service.
Transnet signed three locomotive supply agreements with CRRC, a subsidiary of China’s giant CRRC Zhuzhou Locomotive, to supply 554 electric locomotives in 2012-2014.
The contracts were for 95 locomotives worth R2.7bn, 100 locomotives worth R4.4bn and 359 locomotives worth R18bn.
The delivery of the 359 locomotives was interrupted when the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) started a probe in 2019 into alleged corruption in Transnet’s acquisition of 1,068 locomotives from four private companies, including CRRC.
Business Day
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