Gangster State

IgoFiles suggest that Mpambani met with someone about the planned
Zuma march that same day. The following day, he made three separate
payments totalling about R 230 000 to three transport companies. He
marked the payments as ‘bus shuttle services Igo-Cosatu’, ‘bus shuttle
services WL Mangaung’ and ‘bus service – rally’ respectively. He also
sent payment notifications to the three transport companies. I spoke to
an employee at one of the bus companies, and he confirmed that they
had been paid to drive members of the ANC Women’s League (WL) to
the rally. This person would not disclose where the money had come
from. As it happens, MEC Leeto was treasurer of the ANC Women’s
League in the Free State during this time.
Mpambani would later also make at least one payment to Thabo
Meeko, albeit a relatively small one. In November 2016 , Mpambani
made an eWallet payment of R 2 000 to a cellphone number which a
simple Google search revealed to be Meeko’s.
The February march, meanwhile, was touted as a celebration of the
ANC’s 104 th birthday, but it turned out to be blatant propaganda in
support of the party’s beleaguered president. A few thousand marchers,
wearing mostly yellow ANC T-shirts or green ANC Women’s League
uniforms, walked through Bloemfontein’s streets before gathering at
the city’s Dr Petrus Molemela Stadium. A news broadcast of the event
shows a huge ‘Hands Off President Zuma’ banner and marchers
carrying placards displaying the same message of support.^2 Later, then
ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe and Magashule addressed the
crowd,^3 with Mantashe claiming that reports about the Gupta family’s
links to top politicians were exaggerated. ‘If people have relations with
the Guptas it’s their business, I don’t have a relationship with them, I
have no problem with people who have a relation with them,’ he said