Gangster State

committee. The supply chain manager then ratifies the decision and
ensures the department makes prepayments to the contractors.’ My
source further claimed that Magashule’s departure from the Free State
did not affect the status quo. ‘Ace is still in charge of the departments,’
he told me.
And Mohale and Selai did not act alone at the DPRT. ‘I can count at
least fifteen senior managers in critical [financial] positions who come
from Parys or from elsewhere in the Fezile Dabi region,’ said the
department insider. Sandile Msibi, another alleged Magashule
associate, became the department head in 2011. My sources claimed
that for years Msibi acted as Magashule’s lieutenant in the DPRT, just
as Tim Mokhesi had done at the FSHS. Msibi died suddenly in
December 2017 from an unknown illness.^6 At his funeral, Magashule
described his fallen comrade as the ‘best HOD in the history of the
administration’. He then shocked mourners by claiming that the forces
of ‘white monopoly capital’ had poisoned Msibi because he had
refused to give contracts to such companies. ‘We are in danger of being
murdered,’ Magashule claimed. ‘Once you touch the nerve of white
monopoly capital, you will never survive.’ While justifying his theory,
Magashule once again let slip that his administration gave out contracts
on the basis of considerations other than those prescribed by the Public
Finance Management Act and related laws and regulations. Msibi
‘diverted tenders away from white-owned firms to benefit blacks’,
Magashule said.^7 No department head should be able to unilaterally
‘divert’ contracts in any particular direction.
There is another theory doing the rounds in the Free State’s political
circles regarding Msibi’s death. It gained traction after an
amaBhungane report published in City Press in March 2018 revealed