Never a dull day at Saxonwold, right?

For a period of six months, stretching from November 2010 through to April 2011, John Maseko worked for the Gupta family as a chauffeur and security guard.

That was a pivotal time in the State Capture timeline, because it happens to be when many of the politicians shown to be in the Gupta pockets were placed in high-ranking positions, scoring lucrative contracts for the family.

Much of Maseko’s time was spent watching the comings and goings at the Gupta luxury Saxonwold compound. Rather than sit idly by, Maseko decided to jot down who passed through the gates (which aren’t easy to get through), “meticulously recording the comings and goings of their visitors”.

As part of a new book, Licence to Loot: How the plunder of Eskom and other parastatals almost sank South Africa by Stephan Hofstatter, Maseko shared those details.

An excerpt from the book is published on News24, and it contains some familiar names:

’22/01/2011: Brian Molefe – BEE,’ Maseko scribbled onto a palm-sized card he kept in his pocket whenever he manned the gate. This entry was followed by: ‘Majola, SA cricket.’

…In the evenings, [Maseko] transcribed his entries into a diary, along with observations on what had transpired during the day.

‘I transported Atul’s son to Pretoria for passport. He was accompanied by the woman who works for Sahara who is always there with other drivers transporting Indians,’ he wrote. ‘Majola visited Ajay Gupta.’ The next day, he noted that Ronnie Mamoepa ‘visited Ajay Gupta at 11h04’. He drove a Mercedes S600. Maseko captured his vehicle registration number.

At the time, Mamoepa was the spokesperson for the minister of home affairs, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma. She made an appearance herself in the same month, ‘driven by her bodyguards. Maroon Lexus. Registration not captured.’

The Guptas really were remarkably welcoming to anyone with political clout:

Ten days later, on 3 February, Maseko spotted Nomvula Mokonyane, the premier of Gauteng, paying a visit to Ajay Gupta. ‘Time 19h25. Escorted by marked police vehicle with two officers,’ he noted. Malusi Gigaba, minister of public enterprises and in charge of almost all state entities, visited the Gupta compound ‘during December or January. Date and vehicle registration not captured.’

That’s Malusi Gigaba, our current Minister of Home Affairs, by the way.

Maseko also described how the Guptas sought to wrest control of Ward 117, which includes Saxonwold, from the DA before the local elections in May: Atul Gupta asked his drivers and security guards to bring people in from the townships ‘to come and register at Saxonwold so that the ANC must win the ward’. On one occasion, Maseko drove ‘Atul Gupta and his PA’ to the ANC’s regional offices in downtown Johannesburg.

We have already detailed exactly how racist the Guptas are (the Sun City wedding being a prime example), but Maseko has first-hand experience:

In his diary, Maseko documented the ‘exploitation of workers by the Guptas’ and their racist attitudes towards their support staff. ‘Atul Gupta told me black people are stupid, they can’t think, that is why they are poor.’ He also made security guards ‘stand in the rain with umbrellas, not allowed inside the guard house, and they must be visible to cameras even if there is no shade’.

How about the timing of a certain JZ visiting?

Maseko noted that ‘J Zuma visited Ajay Gupta’ the day before the president left for the G20 summit in Seoul, held on 11 and 12 November 2010, as well as ‘the day after he came back before he was to address the South Africans and the media’. Zuma later denied this.

The day before leaving for a massive international summit, and then the day before an address to the South African public. Basically, they had him by the short and curlies.

You have to feel for Maseko, who says one of the reasons why he was so keen to work at Saxonwold was so that he could tackle the issue of tender corruption in his local municipality with Zuma.

He had heard that the president visited often, but never got the chance to talk with him, as Zuma was more focused on looting.

Enter the most captured minister in South Africa,  Mzwanele ‘Jimmy’ Manyi:

[He] popped in on 2 February 2011, just weeks before the Presidency announced his appointment as cabinet spokesperson and director-general of the Government Communication and Information System (GCIS), effectively making Manyi the chief government mouthpiece.

Manyi’s visit to the Guptas at this critical juncture is significant: in his new appointment he replaced the highly competent and respected Themba Maseko, who was unaccountably moved sideways to the Department of Public Service and Administration.

By contrast, Manyi’s [above] career was dogged by controversy. In 2010, he was suspended from the Department of Labour after Norwegian diplomats complained that he had tried to solicit private business during an official meeting, although Manyi denied this.

The firing of a competent employee, and their replacement with an unqualified stooge, is an all too familiar story.

Themba Maseko also revealed that in late 2010, Ajay Gupta had “called and threatened to speak to his superiors to ‘sort him out’ when he’d refused to shift the government’s entire R600-million annual advertising budget to Gupta-owned media companies ahead of the launch of their newspaper, The New Age”.

When he didn’t play ball, Zuma instructed Collins Chabane, then the minister in the Presidency, to ‘redeploy me or terminate my contract’.

After everything he saw going on at Saxonwold, John Maseko at the front gate was left rather despondent:

[He] looked dejected as he flipped through his diary, recounting the fall from grace of the party and leaders he once revered. In one entry, he lamented that ‘the ANC is not dealing with corruption’ in its ranks. ‘If you can’t catch corruption within your cabinet you too are corrupt.’

Maseko ended up turning his diary over to Thuli Madonsela, the then Public Protector (remember when that office had a backbone?), who used it when compiling her report on State Capture.

Whether anyone will actually be made to pay for their crimes remains to be seen.

South Africa’s voters punishing the ANC for their continued disregard for this country’s citizens would also be nice, but let’s not hold our breaths.

[source:news24]