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The ANC’s asbestos benefits

One of the most enduring allegations against Magashule is that he ran
a bona fide shakedown operation in the Free State. The former premier
allegedly made sure that businesspeople who got contracts from
provincial departments and municipalities paid their dues to him as
soon as they received money from the public purse. Several sources
who once worked with Magashule claimed that such dubious funds
were intended not only for his own pockets, but also for those of the
ANC.
The IgoFiles provide unique insight into how the former premier
tapped into the proceeds of the asbestos auditing contract to further his
own political agenda and to benefit his party. In what can only be
described as a kickback scheme, Mpambani funnelled money that
came directly from the province’s coffers towards party-political
projects. His orders to do so came from Magashule’s office.
In November 2015 , Magashule’s newly appointed spokesperson
Tiisetso Makhele joined eighteen fellow Free State compatriots on a
three-week jaunt to Cuba. ‘[T]he ANC Free State Provincial Executive
Committee, under the visionary leadership of Comrade Ace Magashule,
sent me and 18 other comrades on a political course in the South
American island of Cuba,’ Makhele later wrote in The Weekly.^1 The
group of travellers, which according to Makhele became known as ‘the
Cuban 19 ’, should have thanked South African taxpayers for their
lengthy holiday in the Caribbean.
On 28 January 2016 , shortly after their return to the Free State,