Gauteng Department of Human Settlements. This department was
Blackhead’s first client for an asbestos audit project, and it was from
here that Blackhead’s services, along with Diamond Hill’s, were
transferred to the Free State. I wondered if More was one of the many
officials Blackhead and Diamond Hill needed to pay off. If not, why
did Blackhead pay More R 350 000 during the period of the Free State
asbestos audit saga? I asked Sodi’s lawyers to comment on
Blackhead’s payments to More, but they sidestepped my questions.
More read my WhatsApp message regarding the alleged payments, but
he did not reply.
Blackhead also made a series of payments to the ANC. Between
September 2015 and February 2016 , Sodi’s firm transferred R 100 000
to someone listed in its bank statements as ‘ANC volunteer’. In
January 2016 , Blackhead paid R 150 000 for ‘ANC TG funds’. The
company also transferred a neat R 500 000 for the benefit of ‘ANC
Gauteng’ in July 2016. In all, the ANC and its unnamed ‘volunteer’
received R 750 000 from Blackhead during the time of the asbestos
audit. In light of long-standing concerns that the ANC was funding
itself through alleged kickbacks from government contracts, I asked
Sodi if these payments were in any way related to the Free State
contract. One of his lawyers responded as follows: ‘My client has made
no secret of his membership of and support of the ANC. The fact that
my client has made donations to the ANC does not mean that any of
the contracts which it has won are tainted by any form of irregularity.
All the contracts that Blackhead has obtained have been through an
open and transparent tender process.’ The last assertion was not quite
correct. There had been no tender process for the Free State asbestos
audit. As previously explained, Blackhead and Diamond Hill bagged
nora
(Nora)
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