source familiar with the matter agreed with this interpretation. ‘Narsai
motivated for this by saying that Khaya Readykit would get much
bigger contracts as a result of the houses we donated,’ the source told
me. Narsai denied that he or VNA ever made such promises. He also
denied having a close relationship with Zuma, although he admitted
that VNA had worked on projects for one of the former president’s
organisations. ‘VNA was not involved in the donation of houses prior
to 2013 to the Jacob Zuma Foundation as Khaya [Readykit] was
already working with the then ANC Youth League in the Province of
KZN,’ Narsai claimed in an email. ‘VNA’s involvement with the Jacob
Zuma foundation only started in June 2014 when Khaya Readykit was
approached and I was the person that was introduced to the
Foundation by the owner [of Khaya Readykit].’
During an earlier interview, the businessman admitted that he had
been involved in Khaya Readykit’s decision to donate houses in
KwaZulu-Natal, but he said the figures were lower than the fifteen
mentioned in the newspaper article. ‘We donated four houses to the
Zuma foundation, and only one of them was at Nkandla. The rest were
all over the province,’ he told me.
Video footage on the Government Communication and Information
System YouTube channel shows Zuma handing over one of Khaya
Readykit’s houses to a beneficiary at Nkandla in August 2013. Flanked
by then social development minister Bathabile Dlamini and a small
army of politicians, businessmen and bodyguards, Zuma can be seen
cutting a ribbon wrapped around one of the houses before taking an
appreciative beneficiary inside her new abode. The president then
claims that the Sizakele MaKhumalo Zuma Foundation, a charitable
entity headed by his first wife, funded the project.^10
nora
(Nora)
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