Gangster State

became premier. ‘The municipal manager decides where a municipal
tender should go,’ this source explained. ‘They appoint a tender
committee, which usually consists of the municipal manager, the CFO
and some junior staffers from procurement. The municipal manager
and the CFO would report to Ace, so it was easy to control the
committee.’
He gave an example of how Magashule meddled in the municipality’s
finances. In around 2002 or 2003 , after Magashule became ANC
provincial chair, the Fezile Dabi district municipality was asked to
provide money for a music festival at the Abrahamsrust holiday resort
near Sasolburg. The event was supposedly initiated to create awareness
around HIV/AIDS.
‘Our municipality decided not to contribute funding, because we
thought there were better ways to combat HIV/AIDS,’ the source told
me. But they did not have much choice. ‘We got instructions from
Ace’s people to make the money available, and that was the end of the
matter,’ explained the former official.
Sixteen years later, the district municipality is still pouring money into
what has become an annual concert, despite a directive from Treasury
that municipalities should stop sponsoring such events.^10