concerning when companies submit unsolicited requests for work to
government. This is exactly what Mpambani and Sodi did when they
first wrote to the FSHS in May 2014. It was through similar uninvited
approaches that the Gupta-linked consultancy firm McKinsey and its
local partners, first Regiments and then Trillian, bagged multibillion-
rand advisory contracts from Eskom.^19
Secondly, there is the IPW signed by Mokhesi. In this document, the
FSHS agreed to pay R 51 million ‘on commencement’ of the project.^20
In other words, Blackhead and Diamond Hill were due to receive a
large amount of money up front, long before they submitted anything
of value to the department. South Africa has a long history of such
problematic upfront payments made to politically connected
contractors. For example, in 2016 Eskom made a ‘prepayment’ of just
under R 660 million to Tegeta Exploration and Resources, one of the
Gupta family’s mining entities. Then public protector Thuli Madonsela
found that the transaction may have amounted to fraud,^21 and a
National Treasury report released in November 2018 called for
criminal investigations into this and other matters involving the Guptas
and the state-owned power utility.^22
The manner in which Mpambani and Sodi received the IPW is also
suspicious. Emails contained in the IgoFiles show that John Matlakala,
a director in the FSHS’s supply-chain management division, emailed
the IPW from his work account to his private Gmail account on 3
December 2015. He then forwarded the document from his Gmail to
Mpambani and Sodi about ten minutes later, cc’ing Mokhesi’s private
Yahoo account on the email. It would appear that Matlakala wanted to
avoid leaving any trace of communication between him, Mpambani
and Sodi on the department’s server. Department insiders describe
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