IN 2009 the ANC under Jacob Zuma, exercised its influence to place then director of the Resolve Group, Michael Halton Cheadle on the bench, at the behest of a cartel active in South Africa’s media.
Cheadle, who was at the time, in partnership with then speaker of the National Assembly, Max Sisulu and media group, Kagiso, proceeded to preside over a matter involving the media, a complaint of unfair discrimination effecting his own client and business partners. The erstwhile professor of law at UCT, admits as much in a 2011 report to Cape Law Society but denies any culpability. The admission that the respondent in the labour matter, Media24 was Cheadle’s client drew absolutely no censure from the law society governing the legal profession, after a complaint was referred to the body by the Judicial Service Commission (JSC).
The JSC paradoxically claims it lacks jurisdiction to hear complaints effecting acting judges.
In the report, Cheadle denies having any direct business relationship involving the media and justified his directorship and shareholding in Resolve on the basis of a decision handed down in Bernert v Absa Bank. In that matter a judge’s over-the-counter shareholding came under scrutiny and was found to be de minimus and not sufficient to effect the outcome.
Cheadle’s directorship and shareholding in a labour brokerage and financial services firm owned by the media was clearly not de minimus and amounts to corruption in terms of the Prevention and Combating of Corrupt Activities Act. To put this another way, why pay an attorney when you can buy the judge? Several partners at Resolve had ties to Media24 and/or Cheadle Thompson Haysom (CTH) and/or the ANC, including Peter Harris, Nicola Galombik, and Murphy Morobe.
Galombik at the time was the executive director of Yellowoods, then majority owned by TBWA Hunt Lascaris who listed Media24 as a client. (“TBWA Media24 showcase”)
Far from being insignificant, Cheadle’s shareholding flouted the ‘nemo rule’ (nemo judex in causa sua), one of the bedrocks of our justice system. For those who cannot read Latin, the phrase translates: ‘no one should be judge in his or her own case’, it is a widely known principle of natural justice.
How did we get here?
Kagiso Trust Holdings (KTH) was founded in 1985 during a ‘period of intense struggle in South Africa’. The company’s website states: “During this tumultuous time, we strongly opposed apartheid by providing support to development institutions and initiatives across a range of sectors.”
Whilst South Africans were being entertained by what many referred to as the ‘Roelf Meyer and Cyril Ramaphosa show‘, another relationship had blossomed at CODESA, that between the Sisulus and the Ruperts. The result was the creation of an entity known as New Africa Investments Limited (NAIL) and holding company Phaphama Holdings, setting the scene for the Sisulus to get into bed with Remgro, the former Rembrandt Group, and thus the company which had financed apartheid (see below).
It appears NAIL was one of the first empowerment vehicles, ‘which had emerged from Nasrec’. (1) An ’empawamenti’ sweetheart deal calved from Sanlam’s stake in Metropolitan. (2) It was thus the first black-owned business to be listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. NAIL chairman, the late Zwelakhe Sisulu would find himself actively involved in New African Media as his Urban Brew later became an asset owned by Kagiso, and Nail and Kagiso merged despite objections being raised before the Competition Commission. (3)
It is not the purpose of this piece to examine the multifarious ANC deployments to the ‘commanding heights of the economy’, during this period, and the rapid recapitalisation of the economy during an initial boom period, other than to emphasise the party’s central relationships which emerged to form the Resolve Group, and thus the relationship between Resolve and a group of Afrikaners who are invested in South Africa’s media.
In 2003 Kagiso expanded its media holdings and took up a 30% stake in Resolve, a substantial holding in a company which would later turn out to be extremely useful in keeping labour and dissident voices in check. The Resolve Group aimed to provide a ‘total solution in workforce management‘ and included inter alia Resolve Workplace Solutions, Resolve Encounter Consulting, Tokiso Dispute Management, Converse Consulting, Mediaworks, Resolve Career Transition, CCI Growthcon and Resolution Logic, all involved in the employment, placement and management of workers and professionals.
As a result of the intertwined business relationships developed at NAIL, in 2005 Remgro took up a 37% stake in Kagiso, with the result that Rupert Bellegings Pty Ltd, the holding company of Remgro, now had an effective stake in the former struggle press. The project which began at CODESA had come full circle. Readers may remember that CODESA 2 was instrumental in the restructuring of the SABC which would result in the late Zwelakhe Sisulu also taking the helm of the public corporation (1994 to 1997) and setting the scene for a controversy before the Zondo Commission involving Naspers’ Multichoice.
Max Sisulu was thus a director at Resolve, a labour and financial services firm during 2010, whilst his brother was at NAIL/Kagiso. Max is a prominent member of the ANC. At the time of the corrupt activities involving Resolve, he was then speaker of the House of Assembly, where he divided his time between chairing the 6th House, and his duties at Resolve.
In 2004 ANC members Max Sisulu and Murphy Morobe had been approached by Peter Harris to take up shares in the Resolve Group, Harris had practised law for 15 years at Cheadle, Thompson & Haysom and in the early 1990s was ‘seconded to the National Peace Accord, after which he headed the Monitoring Directorate of the Independent Electoral Commission for the 1994 election.’ Morobe significantly had been the ‘administration head’ at CODESA, and his relationship with the Sisulus stretched back to the days of Khotso House and the UDF.
Harris was thus instrumental in turning Resolve into a party political clearinghouse, that provided entry to the justice system and those seeking to influence the outcome of events.
Just about nobody batted an eyelid when Remgro (the former Rembrandt Group) and one of the chief financiers of the apartheid regime, acquired a stake in Kagiso. And no journalist bothered raising an eyebrow when warning lights would signal that the result would turn into a highly interconnected, networked media empire, in which both Remgro and Kagiso provided content to Multichoice, at the same time they were effectively invested in Naspers, and with the Ruperts holding the purse strings over an empire which comprised, banking, insurance, media and fibre optic cable.
The strategy which had played itself out at Nasrec and CODESA was clear — draw the ANC top brass into the Afrikaner Laager, gain strength and economic position in the ensuing rivalry between various arms of the new emerging black empowerment class, and use this advantage to stall any attempt to gain traction on apartheid litigation. Litigation which might have involved the Tobacco industry, an industry which at the behest of the Ruperts, had bailed out apartheid-era banks when sanctions had brought the country to its knees.
As I write this, there is a call by Khulumani an organisation representing apartheid survivors, to establish a tribunal in the aftermath of the TRC, to make good on the transitional justice framework which granted amnesty to those who came clean, but demanded that justice be served against those who did not.
Oscar van Heerden writes: “if the commissioners were not convinced of the truth or if the evidence did not tally with your version of the truth, then amnesty could be withheld. However, if you elected not to come forward and hide the truth because you might be under the mistaken impression that secrets would remain secret, if the truth was found, and you were implicated, you would be prosecuted and perhaps even imprisoned. Those were the rules.”
Then there are those individuals such as Johann Rupert whose testimony before the commission is a marvel of invention, a narrative in which he fails to explain what his family was doing at the very heart of the racist system.
Rupert continues to claim today that he was unaware of any financial contributions to the National Party, despite there being extensive evidence of collaboration with the system. His assertions have not been tested in a court of law. Open secret’s Hennie van Vuuren for instance, has already demonstrated extensive links between the Naspers corporation and the National Party.
The letters between Anton Rupert and various National Party leaders such as PW Botha, all point to the fact that the Rupert’s business partners included apartheid finance minister Owen Horwood and titular head of the country, Nico Diederichs.
The Rupert’s though critical of the apartheid policy of separate development, had instead advocated a form of “Volkstaat” in the form of a Swiss Canton System, which would have kept large swathes of the country under white rule. The logical extension some might say to the policy of apartheid bantustans, and which would, in the Rupert’s view, have been maintained in comparison to the federalist position, a position which resulted in the system we have today.
Since the winding up of the TRC, there have been several inquests, notably the Timol Inquest and Aggett Inquest in which apartheid agent Paul Erasmus has given damming testimony of the dirty tricks campaign waged against activists and the anti-apartheid press under the aegis of a state funded by the Ruperts.
Surely time for the Zondo Commission to expand its terms of reference to include the many sweetheart deals involving ANC party officials and the media, the least of which is the role played by PW Botha in his award of South Africa’s only pay-television licence to Multichoice, and the corruption which has kept apartheid litigation out of court, despite the TRC process. It should be remembered that those who received amnesty did not receive amnesty against future crimes.
NOTES
(1) Objections lodged before the Competition Commission by Johannic to a merger between Kagiso and NAIL were overruled in 2003, since ‘Tiso consortium had effectively bought up to 81.9 % of the “N” shares in Nail and 31.8 % of the ordinary shares’.
(2) https://hsf.org.za/publications/focus/issue-27-third-quarter-2002/the-tale-of-nail
‘New Africa Investments Ltd was founded in the early Nineties by Dr Nthato Motlana, with 16 per cent of Metropolitan Life, unloaded by an altruistic Sankorp in the cause of ’empawamenti’. The hammer behind Nail was token mlungu Jonty Sandler, who had earlier cost his bankers a bundle at Nasrec’
(3) Some 11+ subsequent mergers by Kagiso were given the green light by CompCom.
(4) https://www.theguardian.com/world/1999/apr/22/chrismcgreal
‘Criticism has focused on the four directors – three black, one white – of New African Investments Limited (Nail). They planned to ask shareholders to grant them share options worth £13m, which would have put about £2m in the pockets of each.’
(5) https://www.timeslive.co.za/sunday-times/lifestyle/2014-04-27-bee-deals-a-skimmers-dream-come-true/
‘The first empowerment deal done in South Africa was Sanlam’s sale of a stake in Metropolitan to a little-known entity called New Africa Investments (Nail). In 1993, more than 10 years before the first BEE legislation was introduced, Sanlam rushed the sale through when it heard that Anglo American was about to do a similar transaction with its insurance operation, African Life.’
UPDATE: What the ANC deployment committee minutes reveal about how the party works