Gangster State

messengers between the Guptas and Magashule. As one example,
shortly before Zwane’s unexpected appointment, his CV was
forwarded to Tony Gupta by France Oupa Mokoena,^17 a businessman
from Zwane’s hometown of Vrede. One of Mokoena’s companies,
Koena Property Developers, had pocketed R 25 million through
housing contracts during Zwane’s short stint as MEC for human
settlements.
To say that Zwane served the Guptas well in his position at the Free
State Department of Agriculture and Rural Development would be a
gross understatement. As we have seen, as MEC he oversaw plans for
the establishment of the Gupta-linked dairy farm in Vrede. It would
have made sense for the family to elevate Zwane to the national
cabinet.
And Zwane was just one example of the small band of former Free
State officials from Magashule’s administration with whom the Guptas
chose to staff their state-capture project. As mentioned previously,
when Zwane moved from human settlements to agriculture, he took
with him Seipati Dlamini, who had been CFO for the cooperative
governance and traditional affairs segment of the provincial housing
department. In her new role as CFO for agriculture, Dlamini was
involved in putting together the Vrede dairy farm project. When Zwane
moved to the Department of Mineral Resources, she once again went
with him. This time she was appointed as deputy director-general for
mineral regulation.^18 The Vrede scheme later came back to bite her
when she was arrested and charged over the matter.
In March 2017 , Zwane appointed Thabo Mokoena as the mining
department’s new director-general, a powerful position that partly
entails approving or rejecting applications for mining licences.