HOLES IN THE FACADE
Ex-Zuma confidante spills the arms deal beans
A Pretoria lawyer, the ultimate arms deal insider, has now turned on Zuma, spilling the beans on myriad payments to him from one of the arms deal beneficiaries
A Pretoria lawyer, the ultimate arms deal insider, has now turned on Zuma, spilling the beans on myriad payments to him from one of the arms deal beneficiaries. President Jacob Zuma spent R137m in taxpayers’ money on an arms deal inquiry that was essentially a whitewash of what has arguably been SA’s most corrupt procurement programme to date. But official obfuscation never clears the air. The arms deal has become a cadaver rotting in a shallow tropical grave: the stench lingers. Now, thanks to the latest sensational revelations by Ajay Sooklal, former Zuma confidante and erstwhile fixer for French arms maker Thales, flies are buzzing around the president’s pate again.Sooklal has filed a damning affidavit in the Pretoria high court that could bolster future efforts to prosecute the president. He claims that Zuma persuaded him, during a meeting in 2012, not to tell the Seriti commission how Thales bankrolled the president between 2003 and 2009 in return for his political protection ...
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