Gangster State

expected role in the whole affair, summarising the joint-venture
agreement between their companies as follows: ‘Blackhead
[Consulting] and Diamond [Hill] would jointly submit a tender in
respect of the asbestos eradication programme – Free State ...
Diamond [Hill] would attend to all necessary tasks in order to
maximize Blackhead’s opportunity of being appointed as a service
provider.’ That the document does not elaborate on the ‘necessary
tasks’ Mpambani was expected to perform is another red flag.
The paper trail of Sodi’s and Mpambani’s efforts to secure the R 255 -
million asbestos auditing contract from the Free State provincial
government leads back to May 2014 , when a letter bearing the logos of
Blackhead Consulting and Diamond Hill Trading 71 landed in the Free
State Department of Human Settlements’ mailbox. It was a formal
request from the companies to be appointed by the department for the
‘assessment [and] audit of houses roofed using asbestos material’, and,
following the completion of the audit, the ‘handling and disposal of
asbestos sheets to an approved, designated disposal site’.^12
According to the letter, Blackhead and Diamond Hill intended to form
a joint-venture entity for the project. They put forward some good
arguments for why the department should appoint them. ‘An informal
study in the Free State province has indicated that the asbestos sheets
in a large number of old township houses have deteriorated to great
extents with cracks and breakages that most likely release dust
particles into the air which is the very cause of asbestos associated
diseases,’ read the proposal. For its ‘door-to-door assessment’ of
houses with asbestos roofs, Blackhead and Diamond Hill would charge
the department R 1 350 per house. They would then charge a further
R 32 760 per house once the project reached the ‘removal and disposal’