Tenderpreneur Gaston Savoi throws his amigos, including Peggy Nkonyeni and Mike Mabuyakhulu, under the bus
Several ANC KwaZulu-Natal provincial heavyweights appear to be back in the National Prosecuting Authority’s (NPA) sights over the 14-year-old R144 million Amigos corruption case, which returns to court next month.
Uruguayan tenderpreneur Gaston Savoi — who was charged along with former MECs Mike Mabuyakhulu and Peggy Nkonyeni and 20 others in 2010 — last week secured a sealed plea bargain agreement with the NPA to testify against “government officials” involved in the case.
Former KwaZulu-Natal treasury head Sipho Shabalala is already serving 15 years in jail over a R1 million bribe paid by Savoi’s Intaka Holdings in return for contracts to supply water purifiers and oxygen to the provincial government at inflated prices.
Shabalala secured a separation of trial for himself and his wife, Rosemary, a co-accused in the case, which rocked the ANC establishment in the province and has been clouded by claims of political interference over the past decade and a half.
Savoi allegedly used his contacts with the ANC and provincial government officials to supply the water purifiers and self-generating oxygen units to the Northern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal health departments and to the department of traditional affairs and local government in KwaZulu-Natal in 2006 and 2007.
Savoi was able to influence the bid specifications through his contacts and was given the contract despite there being no need for the units in the provinces.
The initial indictment named Mabuyakhulu and Nkonyeni as being among the conspirators and a forensic report was presented to the court by PwC auditor Trevor White, who was in 2020 to give testimony about the matter to the Zondo commission’s inquiry into state capture.
After the initial arrests in 2010, the charges were withdrawn against Mabuyakhulu, Nkonyeni and four others in 2012 by the then provincial director of public prosecutions, Moipone Noko, under controversial circumstances that sparked an outcry from opposition parties.
Noko resigned from the NPA in 2021 after being told that the prosecution authority was preparing to act against her for decisions taken during the state capture period, including her handling of the Cato Manor hit squad debacle and matters involving associates of former president Jacob Zuma.
More than a decade after Noko withdrew the case against them, Nkonyeni and Mabuyakhulu appear set to be charged again when the remaining accused — who include former health department head Busi Nyembezi — appear in the Pietermaritzburg high court on 23 October.
In 2020, the Zondo commission heard several days of testimony from PwC’s White about how the group manipulated the tender process to ensure that its specifications favoured Intaka Holdings and ensure that the contract to service more than 50 provincial hospitals was awarded to Savoi’s company. It later recommended that charges be brought against all of those involved.
Neither the NPA nor the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (the Hawks) would comment on whether they were preparing to move against the two and whether the Northern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal cases would be consolidated into a single trial next month.
Savoi and fellow Uruguayan Fernando Praderi were charged for similar corruption in the Northern Cape with John Block, the former ANC chair, and others and pleaded guilty to six charges of corruption and four of fraud in the two provinces in the agreement with the NPA.
Big shots: Mike Mabuyakhulu (left) and Peggy Nkonyeni (right) are back in the spotlight over the water purifiers and oxygen contracts case. Photos: Darren Stewart/Getty Images
The prosecution authority has thrown a blanket of secrecy over the “sensitive” plea agreement, which was finalised in the Pietermaritzburg high court before KwaZulu-Natal Judge President Thoba Poyo-Dlwati last Friday.
The Witness, which had a journalist in court, reported that the court was told that Savoi had confessed to paying Nkonyeni and Linda Mkhwanazi R500 000 on two occasions as sweeteners for the provincial government buying R144 million in water purification plants and water purifiers.
The payments were made to a company associated with Mkhwanazi, who was Nkonyeni’s romantic partner.
The NPA has refused to make the contents of the plea agreement public, but it did confirm that Savoi had been given the deal in return for agreeing to “cooperate and assist the state in its further proceedings against other government officials”.
NPA spokesperson Natasha Ramkisson-Kara declined to comment on whether Mabuyakhulu and Nkonyeni — or any new persons of interest — would be added to the existing accused in the case when it goes back to the high court in Pietermaritzburg.
“The NPA believes that this guilty plea agreement is the most effective way of bringing this longstanding and serious matter to conclusion,” she said.
“The sentences handed down are appropriate and the accused’s agreement to cooperate with the state will enhance further efforts to ensure accountability for related criminal acts linked to this case.”
Savoi has spent much of the past decade attempting to have the case against him set aside and approached the constitutional court in a failed attempt to have the Prevention of Organised Crime Act declared unconstitutional.
Savoi also made an application for a permanent stay of prosecution last year, in the process of which he was granted an order through which documents seized by the state could only be viewed in camera.
But the charges against him in the Northern Cape corruption case, over which Block has also been arrested, were transferred to the Pietermaritzburg high court for purposes of the plea bargain deal during a hearing last Thursday.
Last Friday, the plea bargain agreement was confirmed in front of Poyo-Dlwati in the high court.
Savoi was given a fine of R5 million or 10 years’ imprisonment and a further 10 years’ imprisonment, which has been suspended for five years. The court also made a confiscation order for R60 million in favour of the state and ordered Savoi to pay R15 million as a contribution to the costs arising from the curatorship in the asset forfeiture restraint application proceedings.
Nkonyeni, who was the KwaZulu-Natal finance MEC up until the May elections and who was health MEC when the Amigos scam took place, this week declined to comment.
“I don’t want to be reckless in responding to you now. I will have to appoint a lawyer,” she said.
Mabuyakhulu is a former ANC provincial treasurer who served as an MEC in a number of capacities. In 2021, he stepped aside as deputy provincial chairperson over corruption charges he faced at the time over a jazz festival that never took place. He was acquitted last year and is currently a leader of the presidential task team appointed to try to turn around the eThekwini municipality.
Mabuyakhulu did not respond to calls from the Mail & Guardian.
A source in the criminal justice sector who is not authorised to talk to the media said the contents of the plea agreement were being kept secret because they would be used as evidence against the other accused.
“You know that the Zondo commission recommended that all of the people who were involved in this matter should be charged. We are all waiting to see what happens now.”
The source said the contents of the plea agreement were “very sensitive” and that Savoi appeared to have admitted guilt with regard to everything with which he had been charged in the original indictment issued by the NPA in 2010.
The source added that the case against Block and the other Northern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal cases were likely to continue to be tried separately and that the charges against Savoi had only been consolidated for purposes to his plea agreement.
Ramkisson-Kara said the NPA had used the plea and sentence agreement to bring the drawn-out matter to an end.
She said the case had been delayed numerous times because of the interlocutory applications brought by the accused over the years.
“The NPA considered many factors as part of its strategic case management approach, the most important being the accused agreeing to it. It also took into account the time lapse in concluding this matter and the fact that several key witnesses have since retired from their posts within the respective departments,’” said Ramkisson-Kara.
She referred queries about Mabuyakhulu and Nkonyeni being charged again to the Hawks.
Hawks spokesperson Colonel Simphiwe Mhlongo referred the M&G to the NPA for comment.