Friends with benefits? Kodwa says benefactor ‘has no power over me’

“There is no free lunch,” once remarked chief justice Mogoeng Mogoeng as a caution to politicians whose campaigns and lifestyles are funded by those with deep pockets in big business. 

Intelligence deputy minister and ANC national executive committee (NEC) member Zizi Goodenough Kodwa does not appear to share this sentiment.

Kodwa appeared at the Zondo inquiry on Monday, where he insisted that financial assistance and the funding of luxury holidays for him by former EOH boss Jehan Mackay did not put him in an untenable position.

Among other benefits that Kodwa received from Mackay and his companies was a R1m electronic transfer payment to the former ANC national spokesperson who says it was a “loan from a friend”.

Kodwa would also benefit in the form of accommodation in the Western Cape’s posh suburbs, paid for by EOH to the tune of R656,000 for his comfort between October 29 2015 and January 5 2016.

Of this amount, R250,000 was to cover accommodation costs for Kodwa for just three nights, October 15 and November 7 and 8 2015.

The costs included private chefs who provided catering for Kodwa.

Kodwa would like the state capture inquiry to believe he did not know that EOH had footed his Western Cape jaunts for more than half a million rand.

The difficulty about hospitality is if you visit me, I decide to be extravagant and slaughter a goat, you cannot say ‘why not a chicken?’ It is hospitality.

—  ANC NEC member Zizi Goodenough Kodwa

He thought the places he stayed at were private homes belonging to Mackay, and were opened to him as a “personal gesture” of good friendship.

“This was hospitality that was always offered to me by a friend (Mackay) whenever I was in Cape Town. He has always had a chef. It was not a special arrangement for me,” said Kodwa.

“Mr Mackay has a  number of properties around Cape Town. It was not at my insistence that I would say I want a luxury property.

“I never asked Mr Mackay that I would need accommodation — can you pay for this? — because my understanding was that it was his properties. The difficulty about hospitality is if you visit me, I decide to be extravagant and slaughter a goat, you cannot say ‘why not a chicken?’ It is hospitality.”

Kodwa also insisted that despite all assistance he received from Mackay, “there was never on my part an expectation of a reward, gratification or a kickback”.

The financing of his Cape Town accommodation was an act of kindness from Mackay, he added.

What about the R1m “loan” from Mackay that helped him buy a Jeep; what if the borrower demanded payback, effective immediately? evidence leader Matthew Chaskalson SC asked Kodwa, who responded that “would never happen”.

Even if that were not to happen, Chaskalson pushed Kodwa on befriending an individual against whom there is a “prima facie case of fraud and contraventions of the Prevention and Combating of Corrupt Activities Act”.

What made matters worse, Chaskalson went on, was that payments to Kodwa by Mackay were recorded as his companies’ costs relating to tenders it secured from government, tax on which costs were not paid and resulted in potential tax fraud.

Chaskalson put it to Kodwa that it was an “untenable position to have a deputy minister of intelligence beholden to a person who is at serious risk of prosecution of fraud and corruption”.

Kodwa responded: “No, Mr Mackay has no power over me. He has no power over me in the same way I do not have power over him. We are just friends.”