Gangster State

Matlakala as being ‘very close’ to Mokhesi and Magashule. The FSHS
said there was nothing sinister about the fact that Mokhesi and the
other officials used private email accounts. ‘At the time, the department
had problems with the [IT] network, making it difficult to send emails,
hence we tended to use Gmail or other private emails.’ Curiously,
Matlakala had seemingly not experienced any such difficulties when he
sent the IPW from his work account to his private email.
A third problem is encountered when comparing Blackhead’s contract
in Gauteng to the one in the Free State. As mentioned earlier, a
deviation from the PFMA in terms of Treasury Regulation 16 A 6. 6
requires that the contract price be more or less the same. I managed to
find an IPW from the Gauteng department that confirms Blackhead
was appointed for a ‘specialist study’ on asbestos roofs in the
Ekurhuleni metro municipality in March 2014. But this project had a
value of only R 148 million, R 107 million less than the Free State
contract.
The fourth major problem is that in Gauteng, the asbestos contract
related to the appointment of Blackhead Consulting only. For the Free
State contract, Blackhead had teamed up with a new player, namely
Mpambani’s Diamond Hill. There is no mention in the Treasury
Regulations that it is permissible for a government department to
appoint a completely new corporate structure, in this case a joint
venture between two companies, when invoking Regulation 16 A 6. 6. In
this regard, the FSHS had the following to say: ‘Blackhead was the
lead contractor with Diamond Hill as a supporting partner. However,
the substance of the service had not changed with the inclusion of
Diamond Hill.’ The documents I obtained pointed to the contrary. As
far as the contract was concerned, Diamond Hill and Blackhead were