Gangster State

probing the issue, from accessing these important materials. As a
result, the public was kept in the dark about Magashule and his
cronies’ apparent involvement in one of the largest low-cost housing
scandals this country has ever seen.
For the first time, this book exposes how scores of politically
connected people benefited from a R 1 -billion spending frenzy that left
in its wake hundreds of unfinished or poorly constructed RDP houses.
Some of Magashule’s closest associates pocketed money without
completing their projects. And that is just the tip of the iceberg.
While studying the 2010 contracts, I stumbled upon records that
detail the full, shocking extent of the capture and rot at the provincial
Department of Human Settlements during Magashule’s reign as
premier. In a period of nearly a decade, the FSHS channelled contracts
for new houses worth more than R 2 billion to a band of businesspeople
linked to or associated with Magashule. There is also evidence to
suggest that he punished former political allies who had abandoned his
camp by stopping the flow of RDP contracts to companies owned by or
linked to them. In effect, a picture emerges that Magashule determined
the direction of the department’s money flows by acting as its de facto
boss.
From a taxpayer’s perspective, the Free State’s low-cost housing
programmes under the Magashule administration should elicit great
anger. Many of the preferred contractors failed to deliver houses.
Others constructed houses replete with shoddy workmanship and
substandard materials. In the worst instances, houses collapsed or were
of such poor quality that they needed to be demolished and rebuilt by
other contractors.
Among this coterie of cronies were politicians who once sided with