Gangster State

One of the people Magashule looked out for during this time was
Hantsi Mayeza, a younger girl from Parys who was getting her high-
school education at a small college in Braamfontein in Johannesburg.
According to several sources, Mayeza and Magashule are extremely
close. A source who knows both individuals said that her family
sheltered Magashule from time to time when he was on the run in the
1980 s, and that he helped pay for Mayeza’s living expenses. Mayeza,
who has since taken the surname Matseke, would later become a
business partner to one of Magashule’s children. She also became the
chairperson of the Free State Development Corporation (FDC), a state-
owned entity that has been at the centre of some of the dodgiest
financial dealings involving Magashule and his family.
Dennis Bloem remembered the UDF leadership asking how
Magashule and the Hillbrow group could afford to stay at the Fontana
Inn. ‘They were there for a long time,’ Bloem said. ‘They bought food
and paid their rent. The question is how they had funded all of that.’
His suspicions are rooted in a long-standing rift between the group
from Tumahole and the Free State power bloc centred on Mosiuoa
Lekota and his allies. Although Lekota and Bloem were both born in
the northern Free State town of Kroonstad, they would later align with
the southern Free State faction in Bloemfontein and its surrounds,
while Magashule and his allies from Parys and other towns near the
Vaal River would form the nucleus of what became known as the
northern Free State faction.
The Lekota bloc has always been deeply critical of the fact that
Magashule and his associates remained in Hillbrow, from where they
supposedly contributed to the liberation movement’s activities in the
Free State. There is consensus among these critics that the Hillbrow