Zim vows to continue to hunt for deals

Lazarus Zim, the recently appointed chairman of Telkom and close business associate of the Gupta family and Duduzane Zuma, said on Friday he would continue to look for deals that bring foreign direct investment into SA and create jobs.

Zim, who has been in the news recently for two deals in which the Guptas - supporters of President Jacob Zuma and his son - also feature as shareholders, denied his relationship with the family had helped clinch agreements with the China Railway Construction Corporation (CRCC) and the Steel Authority of India (Sail), India's largest steelmaker.

"I have been in business in SA for the last 25 years. My track record speaks for itself. It doesn't make sense for anyone to talk about political connections. Judge me on the merits of what I'm doing," he said.

Later in the interview, he said: "Don't ask me about political connections. Anybody can go and do these things."

Zim denied that Duduzane Zuma's family ties to the presidency had been of help. "Duduzane is a very talented and very hard-working young man... Why not judge him on his performance, not his parentage?"

Zim has also benefited, along with the Gupta family, from the recent buyout of the V&A Waterfront by Growthpoint and the Public Investment Corporation (PIC), which administers government employees' pensions.

He said his company, Afripalm Horizons, had been approached by CRCC. The deal, signed during Zuma's state visit to China in August last year, was "one of 30 deals signed that day".

Shareholders in Afripalm Horizons include Zim's Afripalm Resources and Mabengela Investments, which is controlled by Zuma jnr and Tony Gupta.

"I've been going to China for many years and have had a lot of discussions with various parties.

"We were approached by CRCC, and agreed that it would be good for us to invite them into SA. SA's big needs are infrastructure, including rail, ports, power, roads and dams. It makes sense for me to invite Chinese investors; they have the expertise, the equipment and also the funding," said Zim.

This week, Afripalm Horizons announced an agreement with Sail for the possible establishment of a R21-billion steel plant in SA.

Zim said the proposed plant would use new technology and would not be dependent on coking coal, a key input cost in steel produced by blast furnaces. SA has extremely limited coking coal supplies. The plant will also use lower grade iron ore, Zim said.

"We're not going into the same space as the existing players. What kind of products we make will be clear once we've done a feasibility study."

Zim said Afripalm and Sail were not looking at iron ore supplies from Imperial Crown Trading, which was awarded a prospecting right over Kumba's Sishen mine and whose main shareholder is a close business associate of the Gupta family.

"There is not a chance; we are not looking at that," he said. "We're not basing the project on ICT at all."

The proposed plant is expected to lower prices in the domestic market and create 4000 jobs, he said.