Riyaz Patel
Former Free State Premier Ace Magashule pocketed R10 million in kickbacks for helping to facilitate a R255 million asbestos audit project, former Economic Development MEC Mxolisi Dukwana told the state capture inquiry Wednesday.
Dukwana identified Magashule along with several politicians and senior government officials who allegedly unlawfully benefitted from the project.
“I submit that the involvement of Mr Magashule in this asbestos audit heist makes him unfit to hold public office or the office of the SG of the ANC,” he said.
Dukwana told Deputy Chief Justice Justice Raymond Zondo that Magashule and all those who allegedly “aided and abetted the heist should be behind bars.”
“To date, no eradication of asbestos roofs has been carried out in any townships in the Free State … and yet R255m had been advanced to the Blackhead Consulting joint venture and R77m of state funds is a subject of litigation in our courts, and our law enforcement agencies are doing nothing,” he said.
The asbestos project deal was awarded to the Diamond Hill-Blackhead Consulting joint venture by the Free State housing department in 2014.
“I have a reasonable belief that the Free State provincial government under Mr Magashule was the only fertile ground in the country for this asbestos heist to be staged and executed.”
Dukwana told Justice Zondo the Office of the Auditor-General in the Free State would be a great resource to the commission, adding the people of the province deserved to know the truth about the asbestos audit.
“The commission would also do well to subpoena government officials who were at the helm of this process,” he said.
Although Dukwana implicated a number of people in the project, the commission has not received an application to cross-examine them.
