Gangster State

(Nora) #1

that there had been a mix-up; Edison was in fact suing City Press, not
the Mail & Guardian. This was over a report on Edison’s City Power
smart-meter contract in Johannesburg, an entirely different matter.
I continued digging and recalled an explosive newspaper report from
September 2018. The Sunday Times had revealed that Magashule,
Zuma and a host of other ANC figures opposed to President Cyril
Ramaphosa had held a series of clandestine meetings in Durban. The
purpose of these gatherings was to plan a fightback against
Ramaphosa and his allies, the news​paper reported. Magashule, former
South African Airways chairperson Dudu Myeni and former North
West premier Supra Mahumapelo allegedly attended one of the
meetings at Durban’s Beverly Hills hotel. When the gathering broke
up, some of the alleged conspirators got into two Mercedes-Benzes,
one of which belonged to Dudu Myeni’s son, Thalente. (He features in
the next chapter.) The other car apparently belonged to the son of a
well-known Durban businessman, the news​paper reported. ANC
leaders who spoke to the Sunday Times claimed the clandestine ‘plot’
and related activities were being funded by ‘tenderpreneurs’ who had
benefited from government contracts during Zuma’s time as
president.^15
The newspaper did not divulge the name of the latter individual, but I
later got some interesting information from Qaanitah Hunter, one of the
Sunday Times journalists who broke the story. The other Mercedes
belonged to a company owned by Shantan Reddy, she told me. When
the story was published, the Sunday Times could not get hold of him
for comment, so they left out his name. Hunter gave me the car’s
registration details. The Mercedes had been registered to Central Lake
Trading 149 , or Empire Technology, the very company that so richly

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