Gangster State

Welkom’.
In September 2018 , the Zondo Commission of Inquiry heard evidence
from a National Treasury official who confirmed that Magashule’s Free
State had made a hugely disproportionate contribution to the Guptas’
media empire. Jan Gilliland’s data showed that the province had
poured nearly R 80 million into The New Age and Infinity Media
Networks between 2011 and mid- 2018. By comparison, KwaZulu-
Natal, Jacob Zuma’s home province and the second-biggest spender,
spent just R 25 million on media services from the two companies.^16
Magashule’s official diary shows the amount of direct contact he had
with The New Age bosses. In May 2013 , for instance, he had the
following appointment scheduled for two different days: ‘Meeting with
NEW AGE (Ms [sic] Nazeem Howa & Mr Ricky Naidoo)’. Howa, who
is definitely not a woman, was the newspaper’s CEO and Naidoo was
its politics editor before he later became editor-in-chief. And in early
July 2013 , Magashule had this engagement in his schedule: ‘Premier
meets The New Age’. All three of these meetings took place at the
premier’s office in Bloemfontein, according to the diary.
The Guptas seemingly used Magashule’s Free State as a testing
laboratory for their state-capture schemes, which involved more than
just their media ventures. Mediosa, a Gupta-linked supplier of high-
tech mobile medical units, achieved notoriety mostly due to reports of
dodgy contracts in Premier Supra Mahumapelo’s North West province.
According to City Press, the North West health department awarded
the company a contract worth R 180 million in early 2017 for mobile
units that were superfluous to the province’s needs. This included an
upfront prepayment of R 30 million.^17
But Mediosa’s operations were, in fact, first rolled out in the Free