Party to the Plunder? Tshwane bus project, Prasa trains deal behind R10m ANC donation

Funds from a huge City of Tshwane (CoT) transport project, coupled with proceeds from the Passenger Rail Agency of SA's (Prasa) botched locomotives tender, in effect sponsored a R10-million donation the ANC pocketed in 2014.

Bank statements and other financial records allowed us to trace funds from the two contracts to a shadowy ANC “fundraiser”. This person ultimately paid the generous donation into the governing party’s fundraising account.

Our two-part series raises pertinent questions regarding the ANC’s fundraising machinery. Do the donations flagged in our reports constitute arm's-length contributions from generous businesspeople? Or do they underpin something much more sinister? Is the ANC in effect pocketing alleged kickbacks from government contracts?

Today’s investigation examines financial dealings between Gauteng businessman Auswell Mashaba and Angolan national Maria Gomes, two key figures in Prasa’s corrupt R3.5-billion locomotives contract.

Gomes, one of the alleged fundraisers linked to the Prasa deal, has long been identified as a recipient of monies from Mashaba. However, the ANC's gain from these dealings has never been illustrated in forensic detail.

Until today, that is.

Swifambo Rail Leasing and Swifambo Rail Holdings, the front companies Mashaba had set up specifically for the Prasa contract, banked R2.65-billion from the state-owned rail operator, before the transaction dramatically collapsed in 2015.

This wasn’t the only public transport project Mashaba had been involved in.

By the time the Prasa deal came about, one of Mashaba’s other companies was already earning huge fees from the CoT. At the time, the metro was controlled by the ANC.

A-M Consulting Engineers, or AMCE, was first appointed in 2011 to run the project management unit for the metro’s Integrated Rapid Public Transport Network (IRPTN). One of AMCE's core tasks was to help deliver Tshwane’s A Re Yeng bus service. Between 2011 and 2017, AMCE earned R1.4-billion in fees from the CoT.

The Tshwane tender may warrant every bit as much scrutiny as Swifambo's Prasa deal. Here, we detail how the metro lifted the cap on AMCE’s contract, paving the way for a colossal increase in the fees AMCE ended up pocketing.

Our investigation reveals how some of Swifambo’s proceeds from the Prasa contract got mixed up with AMCE’s earnings from the Tshwane project. We’ll illustrate how AMCE diverted some of these co-mingled funds to one of Gomes’ companies. Crucially, we’ll illustrate how Gomes ultimately used these very funds to forward R10-million to the ANC. This chain of transactions leaves very little doubt as to whether the governing party had been gifted a boon that consisted purely of public monies.

Mashaba could not be reached for comment. He ignored multiple emails and text messages offering him a right of reply.

"The ANC is at this stage unable to provide information as to the circumstances or nature of the purported donations," the governing party said in a written statement.

It added: "In its submission to the State Capture Commission, the ANC acknowledged evidence presented to the [Zondo] Commission 'that suggests that the ANC may have been the recipient of donations from individuals and companies that received contracts from the state, including in instances where the awarding of those contracts are alleged to have been unlawful'.”

"The ANC stands ready to provide whatever assistance may be sought from law enforcement agencies in the investigation of these purported donations or any other alleged criminal activity.” Here is the ANC's full response.

Money trail

Our trek through the Swifambo and AMCE accounts takes us back to 2013. On 5 April of that year, a Friday, Swifambo Rail Holdings received an eye-watering R460.5-million in its Standard Bank current account.

Swifambo’s first huge payment from Prasa.

This was Swifambo’s very first payment from Prasa.

On the Monday, 8 April, Mashaba began to divert large chunks of the Prasa payment to other accounts. This included payments to his own trust. These transactions had absolutely nothing to do with sourcing locomotives for Prasa. In just two weeks’ time, Mashaba drained R138.8-million from the Swifambo account. This was money that should have gone to Vossloh Espana, the Spanish manufacturer that Swifambo had subcontracted to deliver the trains. Mashaba’s actions left too little funds in the Swifambo account to fully settle Vossloh Espana’s bills. Mashaba had therefore in effect scuppered the deal at the very outset.

In the below letter, recently retrieved from ongoing liquidation proceedings, Vossloh informed Swifambo that it would suspend the manufacturing process. In the end, Vossloh only delivered 13 of the 70 locomotives that Prasa had ordered through Swifambo. They were found to be too tall for the country’s rail specifications.

One of the entities that received bits of the first Prasa payment was Mashaba’s engineering firm, A-M Consulting Engineers, or AMCE.

Directly after Swifambo was paid by Prasa, Mashaba began moving funds to other accounts. Some of the money went to AMCE, his engineering firm.

On the Monday following the big Prasa payment, Mashaba moved R5-million from Swifambo Rail Holdings to AMCE’s business current account, referencing the transaction as a “loan”. The next day, he transferred a R3-million “loan” from Swifambo to AMCE. None of these "loans" was ever repaid.

Meanwhile, AMCE was also getting money from the Tshwane metro. On that very same Monday, a payment of R9.8-million from the metro arrived in AMCE’s business current account. As a result, funds from the Tshwane bus project and the Prasa trains deal were in effect blended together in the AMCE account.

R5m from Swifambo arrives in AMCE’s business current account. On the same day, AMCE received R9.8m from the City of Tshwane.

The next day, 9 April, Mashaba moved R9.8-million from AMCE’s business account to AMCE’s Standard Bank investment account. The money remained in the investment account only for a very brief period of time. Later that same day, Mashaba moved the R9.8-million from the investment account to an AMCE savings account, also held at Standard Bank.

The R9.8m from the City of Tshwane arrives in AMCE’s savings account, via a Standard Bank investment account.

Whether Mashaba's intentions were to separate the Tshwane monies from the Prasa funds is unclear. If this were indeed what he'd hoped to achieve, the effect would have been temporary. In August 2013, Mashaba again moved some of Swifambo’s locomotives funds to AMCE. This time, he paid R4-million directly into the AMCE savings account. He referenced the transaction as a so-called refund. Again, funds from the trains deal and the Tshwane project were now mixed together in the AMCE savings account.

The R4m ‘refund’ exits the AMCE business current account. . .

 

. . . and hops into the AMCE savings account.

Meanwhile, AMCE was receiving a steady stream of payments from the Tshwane metro. Between April and December, the city transferred R227-million to AMCE’s current account. Mashaba moved much of this money — at least R100-million — to the savings account, using the Standard Bank investment account as a pipeline.

A series of transactions from December 2013 illustrates this flow of funds. On 18 December, the metro paid R31.8-million into AMCE’s business current account. Mashaba subsequently moved R20-million to the AMCE investment account. Finally, on 31 December, he transferred R20-million from the investment account into the AMCE savings account.

Funds from the Tshwane transport project went from AMCE’s business current account to the company’s savings account. The funds took a detour through AMCE’s investment account.

By the end of the year, AMCE’s savings account showed a healthy balance of roughly R70-million. This was largely made up of funds from the Tshwane transport project, mixed with whatever would have been left over from the Swifambo deposit.

Gomes the ‘fundraiser’

How Mashaba got mixed up with Gomes has been a matter of some contention.

When the Prasa scandal first broke in 2015, Mashaba allegedly confessed to then Prasa chairperson Popo Molefe that the Angolan businesswoman had approached him to demand a cut of the trains deal.

Mashaba later denied that those had been his words to Molefe. But his affidavit in the Swifambo review application is telling. Mashaba claimed he’d been introduced to Gomes by lawyer George Sabelo, a business partner of then president Jacob Zuma’s son, Edward. Crucially, Mashaba stated that both Sabelo and Gomes presented themselves as “fundraisers for the ANC”.

Sabelo would later deny these claims. In testimony filed in ongoing liquidation proceedings, he stated: “I have never been a fundraiser for the ANC ... I have never, at any stage, introduced Mrs Gomes to Mr Mashaba.” Sabelo claimed that Gomes had been his client, and that he’d been helping her set up businesses in South Africa. However, there is a strong political flavour to Sabelo’s involvement in the saga. His law firm, Nkosi Sabelo, received nearly R30-million from Swifambo. We’ve previously detailed how some of this money was used to purchase a Mercedes SUV. Jacob Zuma’s PA at Luthuli House once posted a picture of the car on her Facebook page.

R10m to the ANC

Sabelo may deny that he’d acted as an ANC “fundraiser”, but the bank records we’ll now unpack prove that his “client”, Gomes, funnelled funds to the governing party.

In early January 2014, Gomes’ company, Similex, sent two invoices to Mashaba’s AMCE. The first invoice, dated 1 January, was for R14.1-million. A second invoice, for R16.45-million, was sent to Mashaba on 5 January.

One of the invoices Gomes’ company, Similex, had sent to Mashaba’s AMCE.

On both invoices, Similex claimed that it had done “planning, development and implementation” work for the IRPTN, Tshwane’s transport project.

On 10 January 2014, Mashaba transferred exactly R14.1-million from AMCE’s savings account to an FNB account belonging to Gomes’ Similex, thereby settling the first invoice. On 20 January, AMCE transferred R14.5-million to Similex. It is not clear why this figure differs from the one on the second invoice.

From the AMCE savings account, Mashaba transferred R28.6m to Similex. He did so in two tranches.

Whatever the case, Similex now held in its account R28.6-million from AMCE, monies that purely derived from funds that AMCE had amassed on the back of the Tshwane and Prasa contracts.

On 10 January 2014, a payment of R14.1m from AMCE arrived in Similex’s FNB account.

On 24 January 2014, four days after Similex had received the second payment from AMCE, Gomes moved R15-million from her company’s FNB account into her personal cheque account. She did so by way of three transfers of R5-million each.

The second transfer from AMCE was cleared into the Similex account on 20 January 2014. Similex now held R28.6m from AMCE. Four days later, Gomes moved R15m to her personal FNB account.

Finally, directly after Gomes had received the R15-million from Similex, she transferred R10-million to the ANC. This was done through two transfers of R5-million apiece. Gomes entered “Anc Fundraising” and “Friends Da Cruz” as references for the transfers. (Her full name is Maria Caetano Da Cruz Gomes.)

The R15m from Similex enters Gomes’ person FNB account. She then swiftly forwards R10m to the ANC.

We were able to confirm that the two R5-million transfers from Gomes indeed ended up in an ANC account. The Nedbank account, called the ‘ANC Fundraising’ account, was listed by the party in this 2021 statement regarding a crowdfunding campaign.

Prasa boon or bus bonanza?

One might be tempted to ascribe the ANC’s boon to the Tshwane transport project. After all, the metro made one of its payments to AMCE shortly before Gomes submitted her invoices to Mashaba. What’s more, the Similex invoices specifically referenced the IRPTN project.

But there are just too many factors suggesting that Gomes had come into the picture as a result of the Prasa deal, not the Tshwane project.

We can’t discount the possibility that the IRPTN invoices were merely a means to move funds from AMCE to Gomes’ company.

A former AMCE employee, who was directly involved in the Tshwane bus project, told us he had no recollection of a company called Similex doing work for AMCE.

Gomes herself once told this reporter that Similex was paid for work it had supposedly done on the locomotives contract.

Then there is the R2.5-million that Sabelo’s law firm had passed on to Similex. Nkosi Sabelo paid the money to Gomes’ company in June 2013, two months after the firm had received nearly R30-million from Swifambo. In other words, Similex had pocketed some of the locomotives money long before it received the IRPTN payments from AMCE.



Another clue surfaced when investigators searched Prasa’s computer servers. This was after the Prasa scandal had broken. They found email exchanges between Gomes and none other than Lucky Montana, the parastatal’s then CEO. In the emails, Montana and Gomes discussed some of Prasa’s projects and contracts.

Finally, there is Montana’s startling testimony at the Zondo Commission. The former Prasa boss said he had visited Gomes at her Sandton home, accompanied by then ANC treasurer-general Dr Zweli Mkhize. ‘‘We discussed ANC finances and all of those things there,” the former Prasa boss told the commission. In fact, Montana went as far as alleging that Mkhize had given Gomes the details for the ANC’s donations account.

The boundaries between AMCE’s Tshwane revenues and Swifambo’s Prasa earnings were further blurred after AMCE had paid Similex. In February 2014, Mashaba began moving more monies from Swifambo to AMCE. Come September 2015, he had transferred a further R18-million in locomotives money to his engineering firm’s accounts.

So, did the ANC benefit from the Prasa deal, or from the Tshwane tender? A bit of both, it seems. The Prasa deal appears to have brought Gomes into the picture, while AMCE's metro tender seemingly accounts for the larger portion of the funds.

But perhaps we needn't be all that pedantic.

In the end, Gomes proved herself a most proficient fundraiser, channelling to the governing party a welcome chunk of Mashaba's tender riches. DM

Do you want to share information with us regarding donations to political parties? Let us know here.