Gangster State

challenge we have currently is that your company is not on our BAS
[Basic Accounting System],’ read the email. ‘In order for [the]
department to process your claims further it must be created with
Provincial Treasury.’ At just before 10 a.m., Mpambani responded as
follows: ‘All the required documents you mention have been submitted
2 weeks ago to the office of Mr. Freddy Tokwe. Kindly assist by
double-checking ...’
It is not clear where Mpambani was when he sent the email. But
fifteen minutes later he withdrew half a million rand in cash from a
teller at FNB’s Benmore branch in Sandton. Although the FSHS had
not yet paid 605 Consulting for the infrastructure design reports, there
was a fair amount of money in the account. The previous day,
Mpambani had transferred R 1. 1 million from Diamond Hill to 605
Consulting, flagging it as ‘Loan–Diamond Hill’. This was leftover cash
from the asbestos audit payments.
After sending some additional paperwork regarding the BAS to the
FSHS official, likely the last email he would ever write, Mpambani
drove to an FNB branch in Woodmead, north of Sandton. Here, at
11 : 39 , he withdrew exactly R 499 900. With just R 100 shy of a million
rand in his Bentley, he headed back towards the Sandton CBD. Less
than twenty minutes later, Mpambani’s lifeless body sat slumped over
the steering wheel of the expensive car. He had been shot dead on
Bowling Avenue in full view of at least a dozen bystanders. Reports
from the scene show that he had stuffed the R 499 900 into a small
cooler bag that was found next to him in the car. He had put the other
R 500 000 in the boot.
More than 400 kilometres to the south, Magashule was meeting with
party officials at the ANC’s provincial headquarters in downtown