>>18047757

> the [Aponte] family that continues to own MSC — to have their over 50 years of work building the company … undermined by the criminal conspiracy.

“140 Days After the Perfect Crime” – “MSC’s five major drug busts this year” – Part 1

https://www.madcowprod.com/2019/11/05/140-days-after-the-perfect-crime/

November 5, 2019

It’s been 140 days since the second largest drug bust in American history went down in the waters off-shore of the Port of Philadelphia. Agents from a multi-agency Federal task force swarmed aboard a two block-long container ship, the MSC GAYANE, the second largest in the world.

It marked the beginning of Containergate.

“This is a massive, stunning amount of cocaine,” U.S. Attorney William M. McSwain enthused. “One of the largest drug seizures in United States history. This volume of cocaine could kill millions – MILLIONS – of people.”

While the bust was big news all by itself, it became even bigger after it turned out American financial giant JP Morgan owned the ship.

But billion-dollar payoffs are a regular occurrence at JP Morgan, and they’re mostly legal. They would seem to have too much to lose.

MSC’s five major drug busts this year

Geneva, Switzerland-based MSC’s recent history is, just by itself, enough to create misgivings among law enforcement.

There have been five—count them, five— major drug busts on MSC vessels so far just this year. This was already the second at the Port of Philadelphia. MSC was already lapping the field.

Then, too, there is this odd fact: MSC has been accused of being owned by the Sicilian Mafia in several major European newspapers. But maybe its just fake news, because U.S. prosecutors have not accused Mediterranean Shipping Company MSC of any wrongdoing.

All of which brings up a question. America’s major banks were deemed too big to fail during the Great Recession, despite their obvious criminal behavior.

Has transnational organized crime, too, now become too big to fail?

MSC’s really bad year began when the MSC Divina cruise ship docked in Cozumel on January 29, and agents discovered six packets of cocaine inside of a compartment behind a toilet.

Nor was this the first time drugs had been seized on an MSC cruise ship recently.

Two months earlier, in November 2018, United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers arrested seven MSC crew members for smuggling cocaine into the port of Miami aboard the MSC Seaside.

Earlier in June, just a few days before the huge 20-ton cocaine bust in Philadelphia, the MSC Nuria was caught carrying 100 kilos of cocaine in Genoa, Italy.

In March, the MSC Desiree was caught carrying 450 bricks of cocaine worth $38 million dollars, in a container filled with lawn furniture.

During a “routine inspection” aboard the MSC Carlotta on February 28th, which had just arrived from Buenaventura, Colombia, agents discovered the largest drug shipment intercepted at the Port of Newark in a quarter-century inside a container that was supposed to contain dried fruit.

>>18058549

“140 Days After the Perfect Crime” – “MSC’s five major drug busts this year” – Part 2

https://www.madcowprod.com/2019/11/05/140-days-after-the-perfect-crime/

November 5, 2019

Just two months later—and, incredibly, aboard the same ship— when the Carlotta called again in Callao, Peruvian authorities seized another 2.4 tons of cocaine.

The characteristics and route of the MSC Gayane, which was in port in Callao Peru between May 23 and 24, sem very similar to those of the Carlotta.

“Occam’s Razor dictates that 16-30 tons of cargo was not transferred at sea, but as part of routine onloading in port,” wrote another. “Logic dictates that the operator was complicit. The crew were given a prepared story in case they got caught. They will be given full legal support, which is normal procedure for drug cartels and their mules.”

MSC is the second largest container ship operator in the world. But MSC actually owns and operates very few ships. The container ships on which cocaine was seized in the past few months— the MSC Gayane, MSC Carlotta, and MSC Desiree—were until recently owned by SinOceanic Shipping, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Chinese HNA group, which sold the MSC Desiree and the MSC Gayane to Blue Star Shipping and JP Morgan last year.

One, China’s HNA Group, is owned by top Communist party officials. HNA Group until recently owned the three MSC container ships which ran afoul of US drug authorities. Their wholly owned subsidiary SinOceanic is still responsible for crewing all three ships.

The second private entity should be obvious by now. The 20-ton drug bust is the fourth one Mediterranean Shipping Lines has suffered this year.

European newspapers have reported—without being forced to retract the allegation—that MSC is owned by the Sicilian Mafia.

Now imagine both private corporate entities—the Chinese officials who secretly own HNA Group and the Sicilian Mob doing business as Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC)—are kicking back fifty percent of their illicit gains to their American counterparts— bankers, politicians, intelligence and military officials.

Until the war on drugs is over, slush funds of at least this magnitude will be available for purposes like thwarting the wishes of the American electorate through bribing elected officials.

This last was an allusion to Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell, whose wife’s family owns a Chinese shipping line which has occasionally been found carrying cocaine and other contraband.

Based just on the response to US Attorney McSwain’s tweets, it appears to me that people are finally ready to renounce America’s useless trillion-dollar war on drugs, and the corrupt forces that keep it in place.

Early on in my investigation of drug trafficking in America, I had discovered the big dirty secret that in every nation on our Gangster Planet where there is a significant market for illegal drugs, controlling that market are the same people who control the government.

America’s big jefe is not someone like El Chapo Guzman, carrying a gold-plated firearm, wearing a ball cap, with a belt-buckle encrusted with diamonds and rubies.

It’s ‘the nobility.’ It’s the peerage. Party officials. Owners of hedge funds. The Davos elite.

Anyone looking to change the dynamic of the 1% controlling the majority of our resources must first figure out some way to wrest back control of the massive illicit drug trade—the number one industry in the world, which kicks out billions every year—from the people who successfully privatized it.

The day we tell them it’s not their cookie jar anymore—and make it stick— will be a real American Independence Day.

The CIA is always ahead of the curve

The CIA figured this out long ago. Certainly by the early 1960’s, they had begun acting as if control of the drug trade was the key to controlling everything else.

Nobody in the big Philly drug bust took any drugs off the street. In the U.S., or Amsterdam, or Madrid, or Hamburg, or wherever the 20 tons was bound for, somebody else’s 20 tons of cocaine became immediately available to take up any slack.

America doesn’t need any more family dynasties—like Bush and Clinton—built on drugs. The question has been the same for the past fifty years: “Who controls the drug trade?”

>>18047500

>Rupert’s investment group Remgro Ltd, already Mediclinic’s biggest shareholder, is partnering with MSC Mediterranean Shipping Company SA to pay 504 pence a share for the stock it doesn’t already own, according to a statement on Thursday.

It is interesting that the shipping giants are now expanding into ‘health care’.

“Ex-banker [Gianluigi Aponte] builds $19 billion fortune from global shipping boom” – “shipping giant A.P. Moller-Maersk A/S agreed to buy Covid-19 test maker and diagnostics firm Unilabs to expand into health care”

https://ajot.com/news/ex-banker-builds-19-billion-fortune-from-global-shipping-boom

May 19 2022 at 12:00 PM

Gianluigi Aponte left a job in finance to focus on shipping. Now, decades later, he has one of the world’s biggest maritime fortunes.

While the Covid-19 pandemic hurt sales and temporarily halted operations for the cruise-line business of his MSC Group, the company moved rapidly to forge the world’s biggest container lines as oceanic-freight rates surged to records. Along the way, Aponte’s net worth more than doubled to $19 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

“They were unbelievably quick” in scaling up, said Felix Mathes, a London-based cargo analyst at research firm VesselsValue. “MSC was very confident in what they were doing.”

A representative for Geneva-based MSC didn’t respond to a request for comment.

MSC has acquired more than 150 ships since early 2021, according to VesselsValue, taking the size of its overall fleet to about 700. Meantime, the value for some of its oldest Panamax boats—so named because they are among the largest cargo vessels that can transit the Panama Canal—has surged almost 400% in value.

That jump in valuation helped fuel a deal spree. MSC agreed in April to buy the African transport and logistics business of Bollore SA for 5.7 billion euros ($6 billion) including debt after acquiring a stake in Italian ferry operator Moby SpA in March.

In January, MSC teamed up with Germany’s flagship airline, Deutsche Lufthansa AG, to bid for ITA, the successor to Alitalia, a one-time symbol of Italian glamour that has cost the government billions of euros in bailouts.

While the Aponte family has been involved in shipping for more than three centuries, Gianluigi Aponte, 81, acquired his first vessel in 1970 after quitting a job in banking. Since then, the closely held firm has expanded into port terminals, with Gianluigi’s son Diego serving as group president and his daughter Alexa as group chief financial officer.

Like Aponte, other logistics billionaires have looked to capitalize on surging freight rates in the pandemic’s fallout.

Klaus-Michael Kuehne, the German industrialist behind Kuehne + Nagel International AG, one of Europe’s largest freight forwarders, doubled his stake last month in Deutsche Lufthansa. In December, the family behind shipping giant A.P. Moller-Maersk A/S agreed to buy Covid-19 test maker and diagnostics firm Unilabs to expand into health care.

>>18047500

>“Mediclinic accepts R75 billion bid from SA’s richest man Johann Rupert”

>>18058576

>“Ex-banker [Gianluigi Aponte] builds $19 billion fortune from global shipping boom”

“South Africa: Who’s who in Johann Rupert’s network?” – Part 1

https://www.theafricareport.com/198719/south-africa-whos-who-in-johann-ruperts-network/

Posted on Thursday, 28 July 2022 06:30

Johann Rupert, the chairman of the Swiss-based luxury goods Compangnie Financière Richemont, the South Africa-based Remgro, and the Luxembourg-based investment vehicle Reinet Investments, has consistently been on rich lists for the past three decades. Who makes up his circle of trustworthy and influential people?

Johann Rupert, born on 1 June 1950, comes from a wealthy family after his father, Anton, built his fortunes on tobacco.

Last year, Rupert and his family came in second on the Forbes list with a reported fortune of $7.1bn. He is currently number two in Africa and his real-time net worth is reported as $8.8bn. Although he has been in the limelight for his strong political views and connections, Rupert is a very private person.

David Rockefeller (died 2017) was a family friend and Rupert’s boss when he worked at Chase Manhattan Bank in the 1970s.

Gerrit Thomas Ferreira, Paul Harris and Laurie Dippenaar are some of Rupert’s earliest business associates and they are still close. In the late 1970s, their small financial structuring house in Johannesburg, Rand Consolidated Investments, merged with Rupert’s Rand Merchant Bank to become one of the largest financial services firms in sub-Saharan Africa. The three all have connections with Stellenbosch, with Ferreira and Harris having studied at the university.

Edwin Hertzog, a medical doctor who founded Medi-Clinic International hospital group, is the son of Anton Rupert’s business partner, Dirk Hertzog. Johann and Edwin grew up together and Johann helped him expand the company internationally, where Mediclinic has been making most of its money.

Jürgen Schrempp, former CEO of Daimler-Benz, is one of the directors of Richemont and also part of the advisory committee of Reinet.

Yves-André Istel is a French-American investment banker, a former advisor to Rothschild Inc and former board member of Lehman brothers. He served on the advisory committee of Reinet and as vice-chairman of Richemont.

Ruggero Magnoni is Italian and non-executive director on the board of Richemont, as well as on the advisory board for Reinet. He was previously also with the Lehman Brothers.

Alan Quasha is American and the founder and chairman of Quadrant Management. He serves on the board of Richemont as well as the advisory board for Reinet.

Johnny Copelyn, unionist-turned-CEO of Hosken Consolidated Investments, the biggest black-owned investment group in South Africa. It is through backing Copelyn that Rupert ended up owning media shares: Remgro is a one-third shareholder of Sabido, which owns e.tv.

>>18058667

“South Africa: Who’s who in Johann Rupert’s network?” – Part 2

https://www.theafricareport.com/198719/south-africa-whos-who-in-johann-ruperts-network/

Posted on Thursday, 28 July 2022 06:30

Fred Robertson, chairman of Brimstone Investment Corporation and deputy chairman of Remgro. Brimstone was started by Remgro in 1995 on a similar investment model – by getting ordinary people in their community to invest – and had Jakes Gerwel, director-general in Mandela’s office when he was president, as a non-executive director and advisor.

Mustaq Brey, CEO of Brimstone investments, a black economic empowerment company.

Daniel Zhang, Alibaba CEO, and Alibaba founder Jack Ma, are two of his newer acquaintances after Richemont and Alibaba signed a joint venture in 2018.

Christine Lagarde, president of the European Central Bank, nominated Rupert for a légion d’honneur, France’s highest civilian accolade. In 2018, they received the Appeal of Conscience Award together in New York.

Jabu Moleketi, former finance minister, and Murphy Morobe, ANC veteran, are non-executive board members of Remgro, which said – ahead of the 2019 elections – that the company was hoping for a strong win for the ANC in the elections so that Cyril Ramaphosa would not be recalled by the party.

Nelson Mandela was a friend of Anton Rupert, while Johann, too, was close to him and regarded him as a father.

Former finance minister Trevor Manuel and business executive Maria Ramos exchanged nuptials on the Rupert family farm of L’Ormarins Wine Estate in 2008. Manuel is close friends with Fred Robertson, Brimstone chairman.

Cyril Ramaphosa was the general secretary of Cosatu when Johann met him in 1990. Ramaphosa confronted him about establishing his new company, Richemont, overseas, and Johann said it was about the ANC’s talk of nationalisation, and added that all the money made by the company comes back to SA. They became good friends and Rupert helped Ramaphosa and a number of emerging black businessmen establish themselves. Although his name isn’t amongst the known funders of Ramaphosa’s presidential campaign in 2017, Rupert was in support of Ramaphosa’s election and outspoken against his predecessor, Jacob Zuma. Rupert’s L’Ormarins wine estate sponsored the wines for the ANC’s gala dinner at the conference where Ramaphosa was elected.

Floyd Shivambu, Economic Freedom Fighters deputy president, was one of those in Rupert’s informal intelligence network during the 2017 presidential elections, who advised him Ramaphosa would win. It appears that the friendship faltered after Shivambu advised Rupert to do the disastrous interview in front of an audience by Johannesburg radio station, Power FM.

Party leader Julius Malema, on the other hand, rebuffed Rupert’s offers to help him with his tax affairs and has led several protests in front of Rupert’s businesses and wine farms, which the EFF consider to be symbolic of white dominance in South Africa’s businesses. It is not clear whether Rupert has donated any money to the EFF, but the party had a dinner ahead of the 2019 elections during which the sponsored wine was Rupert and Rothschild.

>>18023731

>Judge Johann Kriegler [was a board member of Oppenheimer’s Urban Foundation] casually uses the word "breakdown" to describe the [1994] election he is running. He concedes that many ballots never left the warehouse, that polling places failed to open, that ballot boxes were stuffed "to a significant degree," that voting places often had no impartial monitors and that some election officials were partisan, if not crooked.

>But there is no doubt in South Africa that within a few days he will baptize the new democracy by pronouncing the required four-word benediction "substantially free and fair" over the results.

“South Africa: Who’s who in Johann Rupert’s network?” – Part 3

https://www.theafricareport.com/198719/south-africa-whos-who-in-johann-ruperts-network/

Posted on Thursday, 28 July 2022 06:30

Margaret Thatcher gave him the advice to employ Bell Pottinger to do his public relations campaigns, but the company later ran a racist campaign villifying him to deflect public attention from the large-scale looting by the businessmen who employed their services. Rupert once famously told Thatcher at a dinner to “stop interrupting me while I’m interrupting you”.

Opposition politicians like the DA’s Helen Zille and ActionSA’s Herman Mashaba are also in Rupert’s social networks. Both were at his 71st birthday party last year.

Golfer Ernie Els is a long-time friend and plays golf with Rupert on the regular. In 1994, Rupert introduced him to Nelson Mandela during a dinner together.

Another golfer, Gary Player, designed the Leopard Creek Golf Club in Mpumalanga, which Rupert developed and built in 1996. It’s considered one of the top golf courses in the country. Rupert has also played in the Gary Player Invitational golf tournament to assist Player to raise funds for children’s charities.

Louis Oosthuizen and Charl Schwartzel are two more top-ranked golfers amongst the many that Rupert is close to. He has known them since they were teenagers. Other golfers include Christiaan Bezuidenhout and Tom Brady.

Former Springbok rugby player Morné du Plessis was invited by Rupert to be part of the Laureus World Sports Awards decision-making body, which Rupert founded in 2000, of which Nelson Mandela was the first patron. Du Plessis later retired from the awards, but remained part of Sport for Good, a fund for developing sport that came out of the Laureus.

Maverick sport scientist and author Tim Noakes and Du Plessis co-founded the Sports Science Institute in Cape Town with him in 1994.

Leon Louw, executive director and co-founder of the right-wing liberal think-tank, the Free Market Foundation, with which the Ruperts have had a close association since its founding in 1975. Louw has publicly defended Rupert against political attacks. Rupert donated millions to the foundation three years ago for its Khaya Lam project, to provide township dwellers in Stellenbosch and Graaff-Reinet (his father’s birthplace) with title deeds to homes they have lived in for decades.

Retired constitutional court justice Johann Kriegler, whose Freedom Under Law is reported to have received support from Rupert. The lobby group was founded in 2009, the year Zuma became the country’s president, to litigate against “institutional conduct in conflict with rule of law”.

>>18058576

>“Ex-banker [Gianluigi Aponte] builds $19 billion fortune from global shipping boom”

>>18058667

>David Rockefeller (died 2017) was a family friend and Rupert’s boss when he worked at Chase Manhattan Bank in the 1970s.

>>18058549

>While the [drug] bust was big news all by itself, it became even bigger after it turned out American financial giant JP Morgan owned the ship [MSC GAYANE, leased by MSC which is owned by the Aponte family].

>But billion-dollar payoffs are a regular occurrence at JP Morgan, and they’re mostly legal. They would seem to have too much to lose.

Bankers typically become the elites

Johann Rupert and Gianluigi Aponte ties to JP Morgan Chase & Co.

https://www.jpmorganchase.com/about/our-history

The firm is built on the foundation of more than 1,200 predecessor institutions that have come together through the years to form today's company.

We trace our roots to 1799 in New York City, and our many well-known heritage firms include J.P. Morgan & Co., The Chase Manhattan Bank, Bank One, Manufacturers Hanover Trust Co., Chemical Bank, The First National Bank of Chicago, National Bank of Detroit, The Bear Stearns Companies Inc., Robert Fleming Holdings, Cazenove Group and the business acquired in the Washington Mutual transaction. Each of these firms, in its time, was closely tied to innovations in finance and the growth of the U.S. and global economies.

Then coming back to these articles posted in an older South Africa Bread #7.

“Paradise Papers: Glencore hid link to ghost shipping fleet during Iran scandal”

https://www.afr.com/policy/tax-and-super/paradise-papers-glencore-hid-link-to-ghost-shipping-fleet-during-iran-scandal-20171105-gzf0sz

November 6, 2017

Swiss commodities trader Glencore was struggling to contain a looming sanctions busting scandal when it secured Australian government approval to take over mining giant Xstrata in 2013.

But behind the scenes Glencore was fighting allegations that linked one of its partners to secret deals with Iran, money laundering and bank fraud – claims which if unchecked could have had impacts on the newly merged group.

This centred on a major shipping company, SwissMarine Corporation, in which Glencore secretly was the major shareholder, according to leaked documents from the Paradise Papers.

At the time, Greek shipowner Victor Restis, SwissMarine's second largest shareholder, was in jail awaiting trial for fraud, money laundering and embezzlement. But he remained a SwissMarine director.

The documents show that Glencore secretly funds and helps operate a "ghost fleet" of 167 bulk cargo ships through SwissMarine Corporation.

SwissMarine ships are regular visitors to Australian ports, carrying coal, iron ore and grain for BHP, Rio Tinto and Glencore

Glencore has its own subsidiary, ST Shipping, that operates ships under a tax-free deal with Singapore. So why would a commodities trader need or want a secret holding in another shipping fleet?

In its early days Glencore, then known as Marc Rich & Co AG, had a colourful reputation, notably for buying oil from Iran during the 1979 Teheran hostage crisis.

"You know how hard it is to get tankers of oil in and out of a sanctioned country? Marc Rich knew how to do it. It is all in the traffic."

By traffic, Copetas means shipping.

Then on May 13 [2013] the stakes increased again. A US lobby group, United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), claimed it had been given documents that showed that Victor Restis, his shipping firm EST, and the failing Greek bank he controlled, FB Bank, had been part of the Iranian tanker scheme—which Restis vehemently denied.

On July 19 2013 Restis sued UANI for $2 billion in defamation damages, claiming its documents were forgeries. Four days later Restis himself was arrested by Greek police and charged with bank fraud, embezzlement and money laundering.

The UANI defamation case was dismissed in March 2015 after the US Department of Justice intervened to claim that for UANI to disclose its sources and other details that Restis' lawyers were demanding would threaten US national interests. It fuelled the belief that the information on Restis' alleged email accounts had come from US intelligence or the Mossad.

https://www.newsmax.com/US/state-secrets-lawsuit-anti-iran-dismissed/2015/03/23/id/632017/

The U.S. government on Monday won the dismissal of a private defamation lawsuit against an influential anti-Iran advocacy group, after claiming that the case could jeopardize U.S. national security by revealing state secrets.

The government has often successfully used the state secrets privilege to defeat court challenges to federal activity, such as the National Security Agency's covert wiretapping and the Central Intelligence Agency's treatment of terrorism suspects.

But its use in the Restis case marked a rare expansion by Attorney General Eric Holder into private civil litigation in which the government was not a party.

The government did not publicly say why or on whose behalf it invoked the privilege, which empowers it to shield more information than necessary to protect law enforcement generally.

"We are mystified that the U.S. government has such a stake in this case that it would take such extraordinary steps to prevent full disclosure of the secret interest it has with UANI or others," Abbe Lowell, a lawyer for Restis, said in a statement, using the abbreviation for United Against Nuclear Iran. He said Restis has not decided his next legal step.

>>18047491

>In terms of health, it’s not a secret that the broader community of Stellenbosch has access to world class private healthcare via the locally based Medi-Clinic.

>The goal is to use Kayamandi township as an innovation lab for townships and rural areas of the African continent. Over time the smart township model will be replicated in other townships to address similar challenges experienced in similar environments.

>>18047500

>>18047757

What will be done to the people in the ‘Smart Township’ when one takes the following into consideration?

“Wouter Basson aka Dr Death found working at a Cape Mediclinic”

https://www.capetownetc.com/news/wouter-basson-aka-dr-death-found-working-at-a-mediclinic/

January 19, 2021

Mediclinic is under fire after it was discovered that Wouter Basson, also known as Dr Death, is working at one of their Western Cape facilities.

Basson was a notorious figure during the apartheid regime, and headed the Apartheid government’s chemical and biological warfare programme‚ Project Coast. Under this project, scientists worked on developing illegal drugs and ‘infertility vaccines’ to use on black people.

He was also found to have produced deadly drugs to use against anti-apartheid figures, provided substances to tranquillise victims of cross-border kidnapping, as well as provide cyanide-filled suicide capsules for members of special units, reported TimesLive.

He has faced dozens of legal charges but escaped prosecution. In 2013, the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA) convicted him for unprofessional conduct. They ruled that he breached medical ethics with his involvement in Project Coast. In 2019, however, two members of the tribunal of disciplinary members who presided over the hearing had to recuse themselves due to bias, meaning the HPCSA would have to redo the proceedings.

According to The South African, he has been working as a cardiologist for the last 15 years.

Since news broke that Basson was still working in the medical field, many took to social media to criticise the authorities that allowed this to happen.

Mediclinic has issued the same statement in response to social media comments criticising them for allowing Basson to continue practicing.

“By law, doctors are independent practitioners and cannot be ’employed’ by Mediclinic Southern Africa. We cannot prohibit HPCSA registered doctors, including Dr. Basson, from practicing – unless they are prevented by law from doing so,” said Mediclinic in a statement.

https://www.theafricareport.com/63661/south-africa-dr-death-discovered-to-still-be-practising-medicine/

Mediclinic International is your typical successful company. Founded in 1983 in Stellenbosch, South Africa, the private healthcare services group eventually expanded its geographic footprint to include Namibia, Switzerland and the United Arab Emirates.

According to figures from 2019, the company owns more than 50 clinics in South Africa, generates €3.31bn in revenues and has over 32,000 employees. One of these employees is a cardiologist – well past retirement age – going by the name of Wouter Basson.

>>18058906

Is this not being done on a global scale now?…

“Science Being Subverted To Cause Disease: APARTHEID SA'S CHEMICAL AND BIOLOGICAL WARFARE PROGRAMME”

https://uncensoredopinion.co.za/science-being-subverted-to-cause-disease/

September 30, 2018

1. The Commission’s hearings into South Africa’s Chemical and Biological Warfare programme (the CBW programme, also known as Project Coast) during the 1980s and early 1990s, were held in Cape Town in June and July 1998. The hearings focused on the apparently offensive (as opposed to defensive) aspects of the programme. The image of white-coated scientists, professors, doctors, dentists, veterinarians, laboratories, universities and front companies, propping up apartheid with the support of an extensive international network, was a particularly cynical and chilling one. Here was evidence of science being subverted to cause disease and undermine the health of communities. Cholera, botulism, anthrax, chemical poisoning and the large-scale manufacture of drugs of abuse, allegedly for purposes of crowd control, were amongst the projects of the programme. Moreover, chemicals, poisons and lethal micro-organisms were produced for use against individuals, and ‘applicators’ (murder weapons) developed for their administration.

1. The CBW programme, which was developed and supported by scientists, health professionals, research laboratories and front companies, fell under the nominal control of the surgeon-general of the armed forces. Ostensibly designed and conducted to support a ‘defensive capability’ in response to perceived external threats and international developments, the CBW programme displayed numerous bizarre aberrations of policy, management and intent. Overall approval and budget control lay with a central management committee which included the chief of staff of the defence force, the chief of staff of intelligence, the surgeon general as project manager and the project leader, Dr Wouter Basson. It became clear at the hearing that the overall command by the surgeon general and his colleagues on the co-ordinating committee was either ignored, or alternatively that they themselves were complicit in the programme’s criminal aberrations.

1. One of the curious aspects of the CBW programme was the high level of respect it enjoyed with the military and the government of the day. The facts, as they emerged in the Commission’s hearings, show that this respect was misplaced. The scientific research undertaken by the project was pedestrian, misdirected, ineffectual and unproductive. It was also exorbitantly expensive, costing the nation tens if not hundreds of millions of rands. Moreover, the evidence that emerged at the Commission’s hearings demonstrates that it resulted in the substantial self-enrichment of several of the individuals involved.

1. The Commission’s exploration of the South African Defence Force (SADF) chemical and biological warfare programme began in 1996 with a top secret briefing by Mr Mike Kennedy of the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) and the surgeon general, Dr DPKnobel, to a select group of Commission officials who had received security clearance from the NIA.

1. After this briefing, the Research Department began to look at the background to the programme and its implications, relying on the information that was available. This included press clippings, a few intelligence reports and some information gathered by Mr Claus De Jonge who was asked to look at the programme in Europe.

“Load shedding exacerbates South Africa’s food crisis, says Food Forward SA”

https://www.iol.co.za/the-star/news/load-shedding-exacerbates-south-africas-food-crisis-says-food-forward-sa-2fbda692-6541-4668-9239-9bdf5a131dc4

SUNDAY, JANUARY 29, 2023

Johannesburg - The recent news about dairy farmers being forced to discard 12 000 litres of milk because it had gone sour and the poultry industry being forced to slaughter 10 million chickens paints a bleak picture of what most businesses face as a result of load shedding.

Managing director at Food Forward SA (FFSA), Andy Du Plessis, speaks about how load shedding is threatening food security and affecting many livelihoods.

“The real impact of load-shedding goes well beyond being unable to turn on our lights or charge our phones for a few hours a day. It’s triggering an unprecedented collapse of South Africa’s economy, infrastructure, and future. It’s threatening our fragile food security ecosystem, leaving more people in poverty and without access to healthy, nutritious food. At the same time, the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) has granted Eskom tariff increases of 18.65% and 12.74% over the next two years."

Du Plessis says this is expected to stretch financially strapped consumers even further, with reports suggesting some South Africans will be forced to choose between their electricity needs and food security.

“Forcing people to choose between buying food or buying electricity is not an option; it’s not sustainable, and it goes against our fundamental human rights,” adds Du Plessis.

“It’s time for South Africans to come together, take our future into our own hands, and protect the resources that we have at our disposal,” he said.

It is revealed that while there is no quick fix to the energy crisis, there is a relatively untapped opportunity in terms of timeously intercepting quality, edible surplus food from the value chain and distributing this food to those who need it to lessen the burden of household food insecurity.

He further points out that in South Africa, more than 10 million tonnes of quality food are lost or wasted throughout the supply chain every year. This amounts to one-third of all food produced in the country.

“Load shedding is not going anywhere any time soon. But we can reduce its impact on the environment and the poor.

“By partnering with farmers and other supply-chain partners, we can recover quality food and redistribute it to people who otherwise could not access or afford a nutritious meal,” he concludes.

>>18189200

“Ingonyama Trust loses bid to reverse ruling on its ‘unlawful’ leases”

https://www.thesouthafrican.com/news/ingonyama-trust-board-land-supreme-court-of-appeal-25-august-2022/

25-08-2022 09:38

The Supreme Court of Appeal rejected Ingonyama Trust’s application to appeal a ruling on its ‘unlawful’ lease programme.

The Supreme Court of Appeal has rejected Ingonyama Trust’s application to appeal a 2021 ruling which found that it was wrong for the trust to make people living on the land it controls to sign leases and pay rent.

The Ingonyama Trust Board had asked for the recusal of the two judges who made the previous ruling and for the matter to be reheard by new judges. The SCA ruled that the appeal had no prospect of success even if it was heard.

“The application for leave to appeal is dismissed with costs on the grounds that there is no reasonable prospect of success in an appeal and there is no other compelling reason why an appeal should be heard,” read the SCA order.

THE 2021 RULING THAT WAS APPEALED

In 2020, it was a group of mostly women from rural KwaZulu-Natal who claimed they were tricked into signing leases by the Ingonyama Trust on their ancestral land and forced to pay rents that increased by 10% a year, who sought a high court order to declare the agreements invalid.

King Goodwill Zwelithini was the sole trustee of the land under the Ingonyama Trust Act, which spans about 3 million hectares. It is not yet clear if his son, King Misuzulu will take over the role.

In June 2021, the Pietermaritzburg High Court declared the land lease programme imposed by the Ingonyama Trust’s Board in 2012 as unlawful and an infringement on the residents’ constitutional rights.

The judges also ruled that the Ingonyama Trust must pay back the millions of rands collected from the people since the programme’s inception. It reportedly collected about R90 million in lease fees in the 2018-19 financial year alone.

According to City Press, in 2012, the Ingonyama Trust’s board chairperson, Jerome Ngwenya, initiated the lease programme to replace the permission to occupy certificates and other informal rights to land protected under the Interim Protection of Land Rights Act that residents had been using.

This reportedly left residents with no choice but to pay the annual fees of R800 or more, depending on the plot of land they occupied. The board was also reportedly acting against residents who failed to make the payments, while some occupants were left unable to develop their land as any developments required them to be in possession of a lease agreement which they only obtained after paying the lease fees.

LAND UNDER INGONYAMA TRUST IN THE SPOTLIGHT

This week, the African National Congress (ANC) in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) said there is no plan to interfere with the land under Ingonyama Trust. It vowed that the land is safe and no one will touch it.

ANC KZN Provincial Secretary, Bheki Mtolo said reports on seizing land under Ingonyama Trust must be rejected and categorised as cheap propaganda aimed at creating social instability.

Mtolo said it should be remembered that on 9 July 2019, President Cyril Ramaphosa met with the late King Goodwill Zwelithini at Protea Hotel Waterfront in Richards Bay to clarify the position of the ANC and the ANC-led government on the issue of Ingonyama Trust.

“Critically, during that meeting His Majesty appreciated the explanation given – that both the ANC and ANC-led government had nothing to do with the recommendations on Ingonyama Trust – by the High Level Panel on the Assessment of Key Legislation and Acceleration of Fundamental.

“The King was encouraged that a Ministerial Task Team had been set up by President Ramaphosa to have a series of meetings with houses of traditional leaders at national, provincial and district levels. The Team was tasked with the responsibility to address concerns of our traditional leaders.”

“Uproar over unauthorized community trust collecting money on Zulu king’s land”

https://www.iol.co.za/news/south-africa/kwazulu-natal/uproar-over-unauthorized-community-trust-collecting-money-on-zulu-kings-land-597144ad-ad6a-4c83-9600-d8187c468b42

Published Jan 27, 2023

Ulundi - Some community members of Babanango Village near Ulundi are up in arms over a community trust that is allegedly collecting money from residents using the Zulu King Misuzulu’s name.

The Babanango community trust is led by Mbangiseni Mbuyisa, a king’s appointee who has been tasked with leading the community of eMakhosini, the sacred burial site of ancient Zulu kings including King Jama, Mageba and Phunga of Babanango.

A concerned community member told IOL that the money the trust was collecting was not authorised by Zulu King Misuzulu kaZwelithini or the Zulu royal family.

The community member alleged that the trust was being used as a finance vehicle by Mbuyisa and his inner circle, using their proximity to the monarchy.

One invoice was provided to IOL by the community as evidence that the community was collecting unexplained money from residents, and an annual sum of R50 was collected and it was classified as a customary fee.

“This community trust is conning people, collecting money from them yet the land they are operating on belongs to Ingonyama Trust.

“No one knows why this trust is here and we doubt that King Misuzulu or the royal family knows anything about this trust.

“The land these people are collecting these monies from belongs to Ingonyama Trust and this should not be happening,” said the Babanango resident.

Another resident, also from Babanango, said she had been paying this money for years and she had no idea why the committee under Mbuyisa was collecting it.

“This is very suspicious. Why are we paying this kind of money while we are under Ingonyama Trust,” the resident asked.

Mbuyisa told IOL he was unable to comment on the specifics until he was told who signed the receipt given to the residents.

He said he wanted to first know who signed off on these payments so that he could comment from an informed position.

He said there were several people and committees collecting money from the community of Babanango.

“Once I know who signed the receipt that has been given to you, I will tell you what that money is for,” Mbuyisa said when pressed by IOL.

Asked why his team was collecting money from residents, he said some of the people belonged to land not under Ingonyama Trust and this money was for paying staff of the trust.

“This money goes to paying staff like office clerks and cleaners who are not paid by Cogta (The Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs).

“This trust was formed even before he came to power. He found it there and he blessed their existence, so there is nothing sinister about it,” Mbuyisa said.

>>18253872

>This week, the African National Congress (ANC) in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) said there is no plan to interfere with the land under Ingonyama Trust. It vowed that the land is safe and no one will touch it.

>Mtolo said it should be remembered that on 9 July 2019, President Cyril Ramaphosa met with the late King Goodwill Zwelithini at Protea Hotel Waterfront in Richards Bay to clarify the position of the ANC and the ANC-led government on the issue of Ingonyama Trust.

ANC wants to control the land through the trust?

““Impasse over Ingonyama Trust Board continues even after Didiza had meeting with Zulu King”

https://www.iol.co.za/news/south-africa/kwazulu-natal/impasse-over-ingonyama-trust-board-continues-even-after-didiza-had-meeting-with-zulu-king-40754e62-c18f-44b7-9258-9c8019080a74

Published Jan 25, 2023

Durban - The impasse over the appointment of the new board of directors of the Ingonyama Trust Board continues, with threats that the matter may end up in court if the government insists on ramming through its preferred candidates.

IOL understands that a meeting between the minister of agriculture, land reform and rural development, Thoko Didiza, and representatives of King Misuzulu on Tuesday in Pongola, ended on a sour note when they could not reach a consensus.

Didiza had visited the King in Pongola in northern KwaZulu-Natal to discuss the matter, but she ended up in a heated meeting with his representatives.

The issue of the Ingonyama Trust and its board has been a thorny matter, even during the reign of the late King Goodwill Zwelithini.

Also, there are growing calls to take the 2.8 million hectares of land managed by the trust, whose sole trustee is the king, and place it under direct government control.

At some point, Parliament’s portfolio committee on agriculture, land reform and rural development demanded that the governance issues at the trust, which include financial mismanagement and board vacancies, be urgently dealt with.

During Tuesday’s meeting, a source said the King’s delegation expressed his unhappiness about some board members proposed by the minister.

“The King’s delegation was not happy with the proposed names and asked the meeting to be halted until his concerns have been addressed.

“However, the minister and her delegation appeared to be prepared to get their way and that annoyed everybody in the palace.

“There was even a suggestion that the SAPS team that guards the King should kick them out of the palace,” the source said.

However, Didiza’s spokesperson Reggie Ngcobo said the minister clarified the processes that must be followed in the appointment of the Board according to the legislation.

"In terms of the Ingonyama Trust Act of 1997, the minister appoints four members after consultations with Ingonyama, the premier and the chairperson of the KZN House of Traditional leaders.

“The premier then consults Ingonyama and the chairperson of the KZN House of Traditional Leaders. Following these consultations, the premier then forwards the names to the minister.

“Ingonyama then appoints His nominee and forward such to the minister.

“About Ingonyama Trust”

https://www.ingonyamatrust.org.za/about-itb/

Ingonyama Trust was established in 1994 by the erstwhile KwaZulu Government in terms of the KwaZulu Ingonyama Trust Act, (Act No 3KZ of 1994) to hold all the land that was hitherto owned or belonged to the KwaZulu Government.

The mandate of the Trust was to hold land for “the benefit, material welfare and social well-being of the members of the tribes and communities” living on the land.

When the democratic government came into existence initially in terms of the Interim Constitution of 1993 the original enabling Act creating Ingonyama Trust was reviewed comprehensively such that the final product was a new Act albeit called the Amendment Act.

This Amendment Act had to meet all the constitutional requirements both in terms of the Interim Constitution and the final Constitution of 1996.

His Majesty the King is the sole Trustee of the land. The Amendment Act provides, among other things, for the establishment of Ingonyama Trust Board to administer the affairs of the Trust and the Trust land.

Firstly, the land which the Trust is the nominal owner of is administered mainly in terms of Zulu customary law. The land is divided according to clans under the leadership of Traditional Leaders (AMAKHOSI) who in turn are responsible to the King in terms of customary law. Hence the King is the only Trustee of Ingonyama Trust.

The enabling Act was amended in 1997 to create a Board separate from the Trust to administer the trust and its assets which include land. This amendment tried as far as possible to align itself with the practice under customary law. The King for all practical purposes is relieved of all hands on administration. This is left to Board members none of whom is a trustee.

Communally the land is owned by the clans as a collective in respect of each demarcated area. In turn each member of each clan is entitled through the procedures under customary law to have ownership of his/her allotment.

https://mg.co.za/article/2019-08-07-secret-details-of-the-land-deal-that-brought-the-ifp-into-the-94-poll/

[Chief minister Mangosuthu] Buthelezi says that he discussed the passing of the Act with the NP and the ANC, “but they did not need to give consent”. The [Ingonyama Trust] Act was passed in the KwaZulu legislature without following normal process, which was necessary, Buthelezi says, because the province’s land would have been transferred to the state after elections.

[Danie] Joubert, [Danie] Schutte, and [Willem] Olivier went to see State President FW de Klerk. Joubert and Olivier presented the proposals they had worked out the previous evening: first, amend the constitution to recognise the Zulu king; second, promise further international mediation after the election; and third, as Joubert put it, “Put the Zulu land into a trust with the king as trustee and call it the Ingonyama Trust”.

Schutte, Olivier and Joubert spent the day working through details. Schutte and Joubert recall that [Roelf] Meyer, despite his reluctance to compromise with the IFP, was informed at this stage. When the first three returned to De Klerk, they decided that it had to be [Washington] Okumu who would present the proposals to Buthelezi. Joubert listed Okumu’s important characteristics: he was an “independent guy who Buthelezi trusts”, “an African guy from Kenya” who was “not directly invested in this whole thing”. What was needed was a “third party”.

“‘King’s Trust sells people out to mining’” - Jindal and its empowerment partner, Sungu Sungu

https://mg.co.za/article/2015-06-04-kings-trust-sells-people-out-to-mining/

4 Jun 2015

Activists from KwaZulu-Natal say they have received death threats after challenging traditional authorities over prospecting rights granted to the Indian mining giant, Jindal.

The residents of Makhasaneni, near Melmoth, say tribal leaders gave permission to prospect on communal land without informing them.

Mbhekiseni Mavuso, who is heading a protest that aims to halt the prospecting, told amaBhungane that he and other leaders have received death threats and that he had been warned to leave the area.

Mavuso has been in hiding since last month.

KwaZulu-Natal violence monitor Mary de Haas has written a letter to the Melmoth station commander, calling on police to investigate the threats.

The trust stands accused of giving permission to Jindal and its empowerment partner, Sungu Sungu, to prospect – without consulting the villagers.

The Interim Protection of Informal Land Rights Act states that no one can be deprived of their rights to land without their consent, said Michael Clark, a legal researcher at the University of Cape Town’s Centre for Law and Society.

Similarly, the Ingonyama Trust provides that the trust may not infringe people’s existing land rights.

Clark said it was illegal if the Makhasaneni residents had not been consulted.

Mavuso said the consortium started drilling in 2011. Villagers were angered by the lack of consultation, worried that prospecting could destroy their farmland and that they would not benefit from the mining.

“The mining company and the tribal authority stand to earn millions, while the community stands to lose everything,” Mavuso said.

“The people on the phone tell me that I have been identified as stubborn and a troublemaker and that I should be taken care of.”

At first Mavuso ignored the calls, but these became more frequent after articles attacking him appeared Bayede News, a weekly newspaper.

One article in July last year quoted people accusing Mavuso of being a “traitor” and said that he was in cahoots with white farmers.

The article was in reaction to a workshop intended to inform people about their land rights, Mavuso said. He had given a presentation at the workshop that was hosted by various nongovernmental organisations.

Bayede News described the workshop as part of a growing campaign “to stop Ingonyama Trust from taking back the land that belongs to Zulu people from the white farmers … taken by force during colonial times”.

Bayede News journalist Mandla Zulu, a member of the traditional council, who wrote the article, said it reflected what was said at the workshop.

Mavuso and other activists, who asked not to be named, alleged Jindal had used tactics to soften up the tribal council, including giving jobs to royal family members.

AmaBhungane has independently confirmed that the consortium purchased a car for the local chief, Thandazani Zulu.

AmaBhungane has also learned that, after signing the access agreement with Chief Zulu, Sungu Sungu took the document to Ingonyama Trust for a final go-ahead.

The activists described how the villagers woke up in late December 2011 to find “heavy machines drilling holes in our backyards and grazing fields, and trucks driving up and down”.

In early 2012 the villagers called for a meeting with Chief Zulu, local government officials and the mining company to get clarity.

Residents formed a circle in an open field, placed the chief in the middle and demanded that he explain the situation to them, according to one villager and a company source.

“The community was angry and felt betrayed. No one knew anything about the plan for mining and the drilling machines were destroying people’s crops and family graves,” said Mavuso.

He added that Jindal and Sungu Sungu had failed to knock on a single door in the village.

“We might be uneducated and poor but we didn’t deserve such treatment,” he said.

“Putting the Ingonyama Trust Act in Perspective” – Part 1

http://globalenvironmentaltrust.org/putting-the-ingonyama-trust-act-in-perspective/

Amidst threats of violence, a political storm is brewing following an announcement by the central government of its intention to amend or do away with the Ingonyama Trust Act. Denials by the F W de Klerk Foundation and former IFP leader Prince Buthelezi that the legislation was passed secretly are disingenuous. The matter had not been canvassed with the Nationalist Party’s main CODESA negotiator, the ANC. The context was one in which the IFP, in partnership with ultra conservative groupings, was making unrealistic demands about devolution of powers to regions, and, with unprecedented levels of violence, and the party refusing to participate in the elections of 27 April until the eleventh hour, there were fears of an intensified civil war in the region. Furthermore, since 1992 there had been reports that the then government was secretly planning to transfer large areas of land to homeland governments, despite agreements reached at CODESA, and legislation passed in 1993 had given President de Klerk what lawyers had described as ‘extraordinary powers’ to bypass parliament in matters pertaining to the self-governing homelands.

The recent proposals are made in the interests of promoting the land rights of rural residents, so it is not clear why they should be pose a threat, save to Board members and staff benefitting financially from the income of the Trust. The great respect and prestige enjoyed by King Zwelithini has nothing to do with the existence of the Trust (which is widely resented by his subjects). The Act itself appears clearly unconstitutional since it discriminates against black people living in KZN as opposed to those living in other provinces where such Trusts do not exist. Nor is there any good reason why only one of the various kings in South Africa should be the sole trustee of a Land Trust. Historically, this land was not ‘owned’ in the modern commercial sense by traditional leaders or kings, for relationships to land were of a different order in the pre-colonial era. The Trust’s claim to nominal ownership of the land through Zulu customary law is seriously flawed.

The Trust has, with impunity, breached the provisions of its governing Act, which stipulates that it must be administered for the benefit, material welfare and well being of the areas it controls. In 1991 rural residents in the far north of the province near Mbazwane discovered that, unbeknown to them, the Trust had granted a lease to a local traditional leader to operate a private game reserve in partnership with outside business interests. To that end, he fenced the area off and evicted residents from their ancestral homes – and arranged for local police to arrest them if they returned to engage in their subsistence activities. All appeals to the Trust failed and it was only through concerted opposition by the community, and various court actions – including an interdict against the chief – that residents eventually won the right to remain in their homes. The area, like some of the others falling under the Trust, had never been part of the historic Zulu kingdom.

In 2008 the KZN government and a traditional leader reportedly entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with a Dubai-based investor for a massive tourism development in the eMacambini area near Mandeni. The deal fell through, so no lease was issued by the Trust, but it did lease the land to Hulett Tongaat, without consulting with affected community members, including those who had been given the land when they were removed from Mangete in the 1970s. As usual, the consultation had been with the local traditional leader who controlled the community trust set up. This same leader, notorious for terrorising his own subjects and driving them off their land, while orchestrating illegal land invasions and general mayhem in nearby Mangete, was subsequently appointed to the Board of the Trust.

Commonage land, especially in peri-urban Trust areas, is being allocated to outsiders for building purposes, decreasing the land available to long established residents. The rights of these residents are protected in law by the Interim Protection of Informal Land Rights Act (IPILRA). Now the Trust is trying to persuade residents on traditional land to sign leases (allegedly written in English), which would involve paying annual rent for land they already have rights to. If they default on rent they could be evicted.

>>18254004

“Putting the Ingonyama Trust Act in Perspective” – Part 2

http://globalenvironmentaltrust.org/putting-the-ingonyama-trust-act-in-perspective/

The Trust has also claimed mining royalties as revenue, compounding problems experienced by communities opposing mining because of the social and environmental damage it does (However, the Trust’s allocation of mining royalties was one of the reasons its most recent audit was a qualified one). In the 2016/2017 period the Trust Board signed a long term lease deal with RBM Richards Bay Minerals) to mine 10 000 hectares in the Mthunzini area, boasting about it empowering communities. Community members feel otherwise : They complain of polluted water, cracked houses, and health problems.

Despite the excessive cost to taxpayers of rural government, with its top down provincial, municipal and traditional structures, there is little in the way of true development, because consultation and input from residents is generally lacking. The Trust is part of this broader problem, and its existence serves no purpose whatsoever in alleviating the plight of the poorest of the poor.

Hopefully sanity will prevail and the Trust will enter into discussions with the government about the way forward. Any talk of war, regardless of where it emanates from, is to be condemned. Public marching with traditional weapons is illegal, and if defenders of the Trust take to the streets armed SAPS management and politicians will be held to account if the law does not take its course.

Mary de Haas

23 February 2018

“Hillary Gardee laid to rest” [May 7, 2022] - https://youtu.be/5oQASF7gwg4

“Gardee murder case shocker” – Part 1

https://www.iol.co.za/sundayindependent/entertainment/movies/news/gardee-murder-case-shocker-81b25136-1615-4d65-9b30-234fd5925d67

Published Jan 29, 2023

Johannesburg - The man who was accused of being the mastermind behind Hillary Gardee’s kidnapping and murder was released on R20 000 bail last week after seven months behind bars.

Now he wants the state to withdraw all the charges against him and apologise for their blunder. In an exclusive interview with Sunday Independent on Friday, Philemon Lukhele claims he was tortured and begged by police to implicate EFF deputy president, Floyd Shivambu, whom he hasn’t seen or spoken to for many years, as the one who ordered a hit on Gardee.

“I was tortured and asked to admit that I worked with Floyd to kill Hillary, someone wanted to settle a political score with Shivambu using me in this case. When police realised that there was no connection between Floyd and myself as we haven’t interacted for so many years, they then begged me to ask accused number one, Sipho Mkhatshwa, to implicate Shivambu and I refused to be part of their sick game”, Lukhele said.

He said police wanted him to claim that he met Shivambu when he was in Mbombela to take part in a protest at a farm belonging to businessman, Johann Rupert, in Mpumalanga on April 5 last year.

“I haven’t seen or spoken to Floyd in more than four years yet I was tortured to implicate him in a murder I wasn’t even involved in.”

Lukhele said police “exaggerated charges” against him and his co-accused Mkhatshwa and Albert Gama, from the beginning.

“When they realised that they had arrested the wrong people, they started creating, manufacturing and planting evidence against us but still that didn’t work. No amount of lies will turn into the truth. I said on the day I was arrested that the truth shall set me free and that history will absolve me. I have nothing to do with Hillary’s murder or kidnapping. I never even met her in my life.”

Lukhele was released on bail last Friday after he was officially given the case docket with a confession of the man who admitted that he killed Gardee and that he acted alone.

The Sunday Independent reported in August last year that when police arrested Hlabirwa Rassie Nkuna, for killing a 27-year-woman, Nonkululeko Nkosi, in Ekurhuleni and dumping her on a farm dam before stealing her Mercedes-Benz, he confessed that he was Gardee’s murderer.

Nkuna was out on parole and had a warrant of arrest after he shot and killed his girlfriend, Pretty Nkambule, and her sister, Marcia, who was a police officer, two weeks after Gardee was murdered. The publication further reported that Nkuna even took police to an ATM in Sabie where he withdrew money from Gardee’s account.

Nkuna has been added as accused number four in this case but they had refused to release Lukhele, Gama and Mkhatshwa claiming that there was a connection between the four men. Hillary’s father and former EFF secretary general, Godrich Gardee, is suing the state for R18 million for “wrongfully” releasing Nkuna on parole before the man kidnapped and killed his daughter.

>>18254028

“Gardee murder case shocker” – Part 2

https://www.iol.co.za/sundayindependent/entertainment/movies/news/gardee-murder-case-shocker-81b25136-1615-4d65-9b30-234fd5925d67

Published Jan 29, 2023

Hillary was kidnapped in Nelspruit while she was in town with her 3-year-old adopted daughter. Her body was found dumped in a plantation outside Nelspruit towards Sabie. In his confession seen by Sunday Independent this week and part of the police docket, Nkuna claims that he killed Gardee within the vicinity of Sabie and stressed that he acted alone.

He admits, in his confession, that he met Gardee via Facebook and asked her out on a date. He also confessed that he stole Gardee’s cellphone and laptop and sold them to a Nigerian national living in Nelspruit.

Correctional Services spokesperson, Singabakho Nxumalo, confirmed to the Sunday Independent that Nkuna was sentenced to four years for possession of an unlicensed firearm and ammunition in September 2015 and placed on parole on July 6, 2016.

Nkuna absconded from the community service system until he was arrested again in September 2020 for rape. He was again placed on parole on January 27, 2022, and he allegedly killed Gardee and the Mazibuko sisters within four months.

Lukhele said the initial charge of rape and kidnapping against him, Gama and Mkhantswa were withdrawn against them in the final indictment.

“My guest house was initially mentioned as the scene of the crime but that is no longer the case in the indictment. Even the case of kidnapping was withdrawn against the three of us. All I want is for the state to withdraw all the charges against Sipho, Albert and myself and apologise for the error but they must know that no amount of public apology will wash our names after they dragged our good names through the mud for so long”, he said.

National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) provincial spokesperson, Monica Nyuswa, confirmed that Lukhele was released on R20 000 bail last Friday and that he was ordered not to interfere with witnesses in this case and to report to the police every Friday.

When asked about the withdrawal of most of the charges against Lukhele, Gama and Mkhatshwa, Nyuswa said: “The state has the discretion to remove and add charges before the accused pleads guilty based on evidence.”

She confirmed that Nkuna was charged with Gardee’s murder last year and the NPA would not comment on why all the charges against Gama, Mkhatshwa and Lukhele weren’t withdrawn or whether there is a link between the three men and Nkuna.

“The NPA cannot comment on that as it is the subject of court proceedings during the trial,” she said.

Gama and Mkhatshwa are still behind bars and expected to make new bail applications now that they were given Nkuna’s confession as part of the indictment. The Gardee murder is expected to start in April.

>>18230676

>Many political pundits believe the ANC and the red berets are natural bedfellows. The one’s ideology is closely followed by the others’ slightly more radical ideal of its ideological utopia.

>>18203797

>Officials in Eswatini admit there are problems in the kingdom but say the unrest was due to “terrorists” and “rabble rousers” from South Africa.

>Khumalo said that security forces had intervened when authorities “had been made aware of a grand plan to sow a trail of destruction” in Eswatini. Without offering evidence, he alleged the plan involved the Economic Freedom Fighters, a radical leftwing political party in neighbouring South Africa.

>“The EFF was bringing in people to lead the destruction and who would train and mentor its local branch to do this … We were able to intercept the plan on the internet. We had to protect business and security for all citizens. It was beyond a protest,” the minister said.

“IFP media briefing on coalitions” [Jan 30, 2023] - https://youtu.be/8KR8QJQbDBs

The IFP is currently briefing the media on the EFF's decision to cut ties with it in coalitions.

0:19 – “As I conclude, the IFP will not be threatened by any political party and will not be pushed into any corner.”

18:04 – “I just want to add my voice in congratulating the ANC in being able to enlist a new partner in their looting spree in the EFF because this marriage of convenience has nothing to do with ethics and actually quality service delivery to the people but actually opportunities to loot and plunder the resources of the people of this country. You can see that with the token mayors that actually are going to be planting all over in Gauteng because they don’t want anybody to actually disturb them in their looting spree… and I wish them well in their journey to hell… As for the IFP being branded an Apartheid collaborator, clearly Mr Malema was still enjoying breastfeeding when this country actually burned as a result of this reckless talk. You know more than 20 000 people actually died as a result of this because this was ANC propaganda peddled against the IFP and one can actually forgive Mr Malema because he was still a toddler then but he is being reckless and nobody wants to go back to that unfortunate past.”

“Stability at various KZN municipalities under threat due to EFF, IFP divorce”

https://www.ecr.co.za/news/news/stability-various-kzn-municipalities-under-threat-due-eff-ifp-divorce/

Updated Jan. 30, 2023, 10:57 a.m

The political stability of multiple municipalities in KZN, where the IFP teamed up with the EFF to govern, is under threat.

EFF leader Julius Malema has announced that the red berets are cutting ties with the IFP, just days after ordering EFF deputy mayors in KZN to vacate their posts.

“Following these meetings, and the inability of the IFP to appreciate the need to cooperate with those who have given them unconditional roles of responsibility in municipalities, the EFF will initiate and support motions of no confidence against all IFP Mayors in all Municipalities we previously voted with them,” Malema said on Sunday.

Malema wants the party removed from positions of power in municipalities in KZN and Gauteng.

Zululand, Amajuba, Uthukela and Jozini are a few of the areas that stand to be affected in KZN.

"These include Zululand, Amajuba, Uthukela, Umkhanyakude, King Cetshwayo District Municipalities, and Ulundi, Nongoma, Mtubatuba, uMhlathuze, Jozini, Dannhauser, Alfred Duma, Nkosi Langalibalele, Abaqulusi, Uphongolo, Umhlabauyalingana Local Municipalities."

Malema addressed a media briefing in Johannesburg on Sunday.

He said the party is withdrawing its support after negotiations with the IFP to assign EFF deputy mayors with responsibilities failed.

"We have said to the IFP ‘give us Mhlathuze and we are not fixated on Mhlathuze. If you refuse then you should give a counter-offer’ and they said they are done with us. they can't go beyond that they are not going to give us anything." Malema believes it's time for the EFF to take on bigger roles of responsibility.

"The door is therefore open by the EFF for engagements on how best to structure coalition agreements in the municipalities for all those who are interested in achieving stability and service delivery in our communities."

“Zuma Corruption Trial | Judge Piet Koen recuses himself” - https://youtu.be/BMQxleR6NUw

“Judge Piet Koen recuses himself from Jacob Zuma Arms Deal trial”

https://www.thesouthafrican.com/news/breaking-judge-piet-koen-recuses-himself-jacob-zuma-arms-deal-trial-30-june/

30-01-2023 14:58

‘I have come to the conclusion, and it was not an easy decision, that I have to recuse myself from the trial,’ said Judge Piet Koen on Monday.

Judge Piet Koen of the Pietermaritzburg High Court recused himself from Jacob Zuma’s arms deal corruption trial on Monday, 30 January.

KOEN RECUSES HIMSELF FROM ZUMA TRIAL

Last year, Koen dismissed a special plea by the Zuma camp to have Advocate Billy Downer removed as a prosecutor in the matter. In doing so, he expressed “strong comments” about the merits of the then-pending private prosecution brought by Zuma against Downer.

In October 2022, Koen asked the State and defence to make submissions on whether or not he should recuse himself as the trial judge.

“I have come to the conclusion, and it was not an easy decision, that I have to recuse myself from the trial,” said Koen in court on Monday.

“It is what the sound administration of justice, the requirements of the Constitution and my conscience dictate.

“The integrity of the judicial process must be protected against any reasonable taint of suspicion so that the public and litigants may have the highest confidence in the integrity and fairness of our courts.”

Koen further explained that in this instance, the Zuma camp did not allege that he was actually biased in the submissions made to the court. However, South African laws on recusal do not require proof of bias on the part of a judge.

“The appearance of a reasonable apprehension of bias is enough to vitiate the proceedings,” said Koen.

Jacob Zuma Foundation spokesperson Jimmy Manyi welcomed Koen’s decision to recuse himself, saying it was a “very sober decision by the judge.”

Manyi then pivoted to the National Prosecution Authority’s (NPA) refusal to have Downer removed from the case. He said the NPA should use the same motivation as Koen to remove Downer from the case as he “cannot be perceived to be free and fair…”

As previously reported, Zuma is privately prosecuting Downer and News24 journalist Karyn Maughan. He is accusing them of violating the NPA Act. The former president is also attempting to charge President Cyril Ramaphosa in this matter for allegedly failing to act on complaints Zuma made to him about the NPA prosecutor.

Zuma and French arms company Thales are the accused parties in the Arms Deal Trial, which dates back to 1999.

The former president is accused of accepting a R500 000 bribe from Thales annually to protect them from an investigation into a deal to supply military hardware to South Africa, according to Reuters. The parties face 16 charges of racketeering, fraud, corruption and money laundering.

>>18254152

“Judge Piet Koen recuses himself from Zuma's corruption trial: Mzwanele Manyi [Jacob Zuma Foundation reaction]”

https://youtu.be/sEVJf5IuHps

Judge Piet Koen says his decision to recuse himself from former president Jacob Zuma's corruption trial in the High Court in Pietermaritzburg is in the interest of justice. Zuma and his co-accused, French company Thales, face charges related to fraud, corruption and money laundering in connection with the multi-billion-rand arms deal that took place in the 1990s.

>>18254097

>As for the IFP being branded an Apartheid collaborator, clearly Mr Malema was still enjoying breastfeeding when this country actually burned as a result of this reckless talk. You know more than 20 000 people actually died as a result of this because this was ANC propaganda peddled against the IFP and one can actually forgive Mr Malema because he was still a toddler then but he is being reckless and nobody wants to go back to that unfortunate past.

In response to this…

“CIC Julius Malema Addresses EFF Press Conference” – 1 of 2

https://youtu.be/35hTfZR8Et4

Jan 29, 2023

6:28 – “This comes after the credible realization that the EFF has grown tremendously over the past 10 years and has now reached a stage where we are ready to govern. This will immediately require a deliberate effort to politically educate not only 1 million members of the EFF but society as a whole to the ideals and principles of a socialist government so that our people rally behind and defend the gains of economic freedom once it is attained.’’

13:49 – “The EFF will initiate and support motions of no confidence against all IFP mayors in all municipalities we previously voted for them.”

15:54 – “The EFF will continue to participate in the removal of the DA across all metros.”

22:12– “The EFF has resolved to hold a national shutdown to demand the return of electricity and for the resignation of Cyril Ramaphosa on the 20th of March 2023… No truck and no train will be allowed on the roads and railways particularly the trucks transporting South Africa’s minerals and coal to outside South Africa through Richards Bay. We cannot fold our arms and do nothing when the ANC government and Cyril Ramaphosa who is involved in a lot of criminal and questionable dealings and yet protected by law enforcement agencies. This is a shutdown we will call for the immediate end to load shedding which is crippling the South African economy and returning this country to the dark ages.”

24:48 – “All sectors and spheres of society are invited to form part of this historic National shutdown which will confront the puppet of the capitalist establishment Cyril Ramaphosa directly and expose him as an agent who’s determined to sell the sovereignty of South Africa to the highest bidder. The EFF leadership will be engaging with all taxi associations to support the national shutdown and will encourage all structures at all levels to engage taxi associations and all people to support the national shutdown.”

26:44 – “The continue rising levels of unemployment, the increasing cost of living, the rolling electricity blackouts and rampant corruption and incompetence of the ruling party are all signs that South Africa is yet another African country that is collapsing after the attainment of liberation.”

37:57 – “The negotiations with the IFP will never be closed, it’s an opposition party with a history of collaborating with Apartheid.”

38:39 – “The DA more than willing to negotiate and give power to Patriotic Alliance. A Party of well-known convicted criminals… and then not ready to talk to us who have clean record and no history of being convicted criminals.”

42:10 – “National shutdown 20 March, we don’t apply for nothing. We can’t apply for that which is given to us by the Constitution. It is our Constitutional right to protest and we shall protest on the 20th of March. Like Sharpeville, we’re not scared of the state power. Let the state come with its power, we’ll come with the mass power. So everything is going to come to a standstill… On the 20th, if you know what is good for you, park your trucks in your depots. Let the trains stop.”

53:03 – “Our interest in taking over housing is to unlock opportunities for our people and also to reclaim the hijacked buildings in Johannesburg and convert them into people’s house and student accommodation.”

>>18259465

“CIC Julius Malema Addresses EFF Press Conference” – 2 of 2

https://youtu.be/35hTfZR8Et4

Jan 29, 2023

59:50 – “Well as a political party especially a leftist movement, consistent training of your cadres is very important so that they become grounded on your ideological orientation and your policies. So it’s important we intensify political education.”

1:02:31 – “Let’s go back to 1994 without BEE, without anything. 1994 a democratic breakthrough, white business people went to fetch black people into their companies and say let’s work together because they were seeing that democracy is here.

1:12:20 – “We’re not threatened by any security because we do this [national shutdown] peacefully, it’s our right. And if they want to come and violate our rights, they will find us ready. No one is going to intimidate us. South Africa will come to a stand still. If Ramaphosa does not resign on the 20th of March then what will happen will be announced on the 20th of March but we never make pronouncement on the things that are not possible. Whether Ramaphosa likes it or not, it’s a mess in this country, he is responsible for crimes of Phala Phala and it’s not me who is saying that his former Chief Justice who says that there’s prima facie evidence for Ramaphosa to answer on Phala Phala. Why would you want to continue as a president after being found with dollars that are not declared to Reserve Bank and SARS.

1:14:49 – “The July 2021 of Zuma… The unrest of Zuma is going to look like a Mickey Mouse. From Musina to Cape Town, nothing will be move except ambulances, hospitals, doctors and nurses and police. Only emergency services and emergency services include you who’s asking about people’s lives. You will be covering nicely the protest of the EFF on that day. We are unstoppable. South Africa has been waiting for too long. We are mobilizing every corner of our country. That is the beginning of bringing down the ANC and Ramaphosa. 20 March 2023 is a Freedom Day. Our freedom that was stolen by the criminals of the ANC shall be returned to the people of South Africa on the 20th of March 2023. Everywhere else we meet, progressive unions and all progressive professionals, we must all remind each other that freedom is coming on the 20th March 2023. We are going to switch on the lights of South Africa because we are going to remove a man who switched off the lights of South Africa.”

>>18259465

>The DA more than willing to negotiate and give power to Patriotic Alliance. A Party of well-known convicted criminals

“Gayton Mckenzie marks 100 days as Central Karoo mayor” - https://youtu.be/gKxojtIsKOU

“Ex-con Gayton McKenzie offers to help Flabba’s killer: ‘God forgave you’”

https://www.thesouthafrican.com/lifestyle/celeb-news/gayton-mckenzie-patriotic-alliance-mayor-jail-criminal-kenny-kunene-flabba-skwatta-kamp-sindisiwe-manqele-parole-latest-news/

30-05-2022 10:07

‘You served your time’: ex-convict and Central Karoo mayor Gayton McKenzie tweeted in support of Flabba’s killer Sindisiwe Manqele.

Former convicted criminals Gayton McKenzie and Kenny Kunene have vowed to assist the woman behind the death of slain Skwatta Kamp rapper Flabba.

The founding members of political party the Patriotic Alliance (PA) have pledged their support to Sindisiwe Manqele after she was granted parole last week. Manqele served six years for the death of Nkululeko Habedi aka Flabba, who she stabbed to death in 2015.

GAYTON MCKENZIE’S PAST CONVICTIONS

Gayton McKenzie’s career from criminal to presidential campaigner has been well-documented. The Bloemfontein-born politician and motivational speaker has spoken extensively about his criminal background, which included armed robbery and being a part of the notorious “Numbers” gang.

In jail, Gayton McKenzie formed a firm friendship with Kenny Kunene – who was imprisoned for theft and fraud. The pair would be involved in a bombshell prison expose in 2002 at Grootvlei, which lead to his early release.

He tweeted of Kunene and himself: “They can call us criminals, yes we did commit crimes 3 decades ago. We went to jail, we paid for our crimes. We share our riches because we know what it is not to have, we gave 17,000 food parcels during lockdown. Salute.”

Gayton is the author of several bestseller books that details his past offences. They include The Choice: The Gayton McKenzie Story, A Hustler’s Bible and The Uncomfortable Truth amongst many others.

>>18259632

>>18248211

>The ANC managed to garner support from other parties such as the EFF and PA to finally vote Phalatse out of office this week.

“Mpho Phalatse’s removal engineered by Patriotic Alliance”

https://www.citizen.co.za/news/mpho-phalatses-removal-engineered-by-patriotic-alliance-january-2023/

27 Jan 2023

The council is expected to vote for a new mayor today.

Former City of Joburg mayor Dr Mpho Phalatse says she will not resign from the Democratic Alliance (DA) following her ousting yesterday.

This is after the DA coalition partners accused the party of not supporting her.

“The DA is a very big organisation and yes, I do have a lot of support from the DA,” said Phalatse.

Her removal appeared to have been engineered by the Patriotic Alliance (PA), who had initially said they would vote for Phalatse in exchange for two MMC positions in the Joburg metro and some of the MMC positions in the Ekurhuleni metro.

‘They can go to hell’

PA leader Gayton McKenzie said there was never an agreement between them and the DA for a coalition.

“How can I betray white people against black people. I am voting with my people. I have no agreement with the DA, they can go to hell,” McKenzie said.

Following horse trading behind closed doors, The Citizen was reliably informed the minority parties had reached an agreement to field Thapelo Amad from Al Jama-ah as their preferred candidate for mayor.

Temporary mayor

Former mayor and ANC regional chair Dada Morero said the negotiations agreed in principle a temporary mayor from the minority parties would be fielded until the ANC and the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) reached a coalition agreement.

“We don’t know how long it will be, it could be in February or in March,” Morero said. [Is this the real reason for Malema’s proposed strike on 20 March in order to get his way? >>18259465, >>18259474]

>>18254028

>>18254032

“Hillary Gardee shot with a state gun”

https://www.iol.co.za/sundayindependent/news/africa/hillary-gardee-shot-with-a-state-gun-1cb4b686-bf9a-41a1-bcca-f4490f843273

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2023

Johannesburg - The man who confessed to robbing and killing Hillary Gardee in April last year told police in a shocking confession that he used a state-issued firearm to kill her.

In the chilling confession, seen by the Sunday Independent, Hlabirwa Rasie Nkune (sic), told police in August last year that he acted alone when he robbed Gardee of R1 500 and shot her in the back of the head while she was running away from him in the bush near Sabie in Mpumalanga.

Nkune admitted that he had used a 9mm PX4 pistol that he had earlier robbed from a traffic officer in Kanyamazane near Nelspruit. Police in Mpumalanga had initially arrested Sipho Mkhatswa, Philemon Lukhele and Albert Gama and accused them of raping and killing Gardee at Insika Guest Lodge owned by Lukhele in Nelspruit.

The men have protested their innocence since day one but police mounted evidence against them which now looks to be false. Lukhele was released on R20 000 bail three weeks ago, after seven months in custody, while Mkhatshwa and Gama are still behind the bars.

Nkune in his confession, which was admitted in court and added as part of the indictment, doesn’t implicate the three men or mention any role they would have played when he killed Gardee. But instead, Nkune gave police names of his friends, a group of hoodlums, who are preying on young women on social media and then later rape and kill them after robbing them of their belongings including, cash, cellphones and cars.

Nkune also admitted that he shot and killed “my wife”, Pretty Mazibuko and her sister, Marcia, who was a police officer, on May 15, 2022 after an argument.

Nkune claims that he went home and told his mother that he had killed some people, including his wife, before his friends drove him to Mozambique the following day, where he was hiding from the police.

Nkune took police to point out all the scenes where he committed the crimes on August 14, 2022, including the spot where he killed Gardee and robbed the traffic officer.

Another piece of information, seen by the “Sunday Independent”, contained in a police “success report” on the day Nkune was arrested, states that “information indicates that there’s a possibility that the suspect is wanted and will be linked to more than 20 cases in the province”.

The report added that Nkune had killed Gardee with a service firearm stolen from a traffic officer. Nkune was arrested in KwaThema, Springs, on August 11, 2022, days after he returned from Mozambique. Nkune had lured another woman to meet him on a date but again he intended to rob her of her Mercedes-Benz vehicle and sell it for cash.

Nkune allegedly strangled 27-year-old Nokuthula Nkosi and dumped her in a farm dam while she was still alive. She managed to identify him before she died after she was rescued by a farmworker.

Gardee’s father, Godrich, who is a former EFF secretary-general, is suing the state for R18-million for the grief and pain his family have suffered after the Correctional Services Department unlawfully released Nkune on parole months before he killed his daughter.

In their letter to Justice Minister,Ronald Lamola, Gardee’s family argue that Nkune should not have been released on parole as he had other pending cases and that “Hillary would not have been his victim, causing the family so much grief”.

Lamola was given 60 days to respond to the letter sent in October 2022 but he has yet to respond.

The National Prosecuting Authority and police this week failed to answer detailed questions sent to them regarding Nkune’s confession, pointing out of the scene and the gun stolen from a traffic officer that was used to kill three people, including Gardee.

The Gardee murder trial is scheduled to start in the High Court sitting in Mbombela in April. Lukhele, Mkhatshwa and Gama are trying to clear their names and get all charges against them related to this case dropped.

>>17940762 - Is David Mabuza being manipulated due to the affidavit and other scandals?

“David Mabuza's resignation | Sandile Swana and Dr Levy Ndou weigh in” - https://youtu.be/Kuy8nhQNHr4

0:42 – “My suspicion is that there could have been a number of other discussions that were taking place between the ANC and Mabuza himself based on the fact that Mabuza for me has actually saved the President’s political life. [It] is David Mabuza in 2017 who came with the unity project in the ANC that at the last few minutes of voting, David Mabuza convinced Mpumalanga Province to vote for Cyril Ramaphosa. It was David Mabuza who chose last month at the conference of the ANC to contest any other position eventhough nominated.”

3:12 – “He [David Mabuza] says that I am paving the way for the one who was elected at Nasrec.”

“David Mabuza confirms he has resigned as deputy president”

https://www.iol.co.za/news/david-mabuza-confirms-he-has-resigned-as-deputy-president-77d00345-4b11-4507-944f-375e9b8b2ace

FEBRUARY 4, 2023

Deputy President David Mabuza has broken his silence on his future, confirming that he has resigned from his position.

This follows weeks of speculation since Paul Mashatile was elected deputy president of the ANC at the Nasrec conference in December.

Mabuza, who was addressing mourners at his brother’s funeral in Mpumalanga on Saturday, confirmed he had sent a letter to President Cyril Ramaphosa saying he was resigning.

“As you all know, there was a conference where I declined nomination. I was deputy president of the ANC. But in that conference Paul Mashatile was elected to be deputy president. Then I was left as deputy president of the country. What do you think must happen?

“The reason (for leaving) is to make way for the one elected by conference because I can see that he is starting to move, and I am making things quick on my side to give him space. I spoke to the president,” said Mabuza.

“The president will say himself that Mabuza has resigned. I promised him that I will respect him until I leave office. I hope those left behind will also respect him,” he told mourners.

Mabuza had been deputy president since Ramaphosa became president in 2018.

There has been mounting speculation on when Ramaphosa will announce his new Cabinet.

Parliament announced this week that new MPs will be sworn-in on Monday. ’This will be ahead of the State of the Nation Address on Thursday.

It is expected that Mashatile will be joined by former premier and MEC in KwaZulu-Natal Sihle Zikalala and another former MEC in Gauteng, Parks Tau, as new ANC MPs.

This will be before the anticipated Cabinet reshuffle.

Mashatile is then expected to become the deputy president and Zikalala to go into Cabinet.