I am still not sure what white monopoly capital is. Sure, in the past there was.
However, 23 years of BEE, where mostly the cadres succeeded in getting equity stakes in banks, insurance companies, mines and the like put an end to that one.
Cyril Ramaphosa, Patrice Motsepe, Iqbal Surve, and Tokyo Sexwale don’t look that white to me. Cosatu affiliates like Kopano ke Matla , their investment arm, became big players in the investment world.
Then there is the ANC investment vehicle Chancellor House, that was involved in the tender for the boilers of Medupi and Kusile power stations, through their 25% stake in Hitachi Power Africa, the company that got the R40 billion boiler tender for Medupi and Kusile, where the wife of Gwede Mantashe already have coal tenders lined up, besides being a director of Bidvest, that landed an R639 million Kusile catering contract.
Chancellor House also own 10% of Bateman Africa, the company that landed an R2 billion materials handling contract at Kusile power station [Source for this Mail & Guardian].
Chancellor House also owns the Pietermaritzburg Company Pfisterer; the company has a monopoly in SA for the grid accessory market, and thus exclusively supply Eskom.
Besides, no tender will EVER go to a white controlled company anyway.
In short, #WMC was invented by Zupta to take attention away from what they did. Something so serious, that when all the details come out, and it will, the country will be shocked.
So how did the Gupta and Zuma families become billionaires in a couple of years? How come they can commandeer an Air Force Base, and get away with it?
In short, they bought Zuma783.
In addition, that gave them control of taxpayer monopoly capital.
With Zuma783 in their pocket, they owned the 104-year-old ANC. Zuma783 and the entire ANC came as a package deal, quite a bargain, considering what monetary value the Guptas would acquire through this investment.
Turns out our heroic ANC sold the country to an immigrant family from India. Just like that.
The Guptas set about to control the SOE’s. They accomplished this by buying the ministers concerned. With the ministers in the back pocket, they made sure they control the boards of the SOE’s. In addition, they succeeded in that quite easily. The Guptas through loyalist boards and CEO’s like Brian Molefe and Mad Hlaudi control all Transnet, Eskom, Denel, and SABC.
Under Brian Molefe as the CEO of Transnet, the Gupta controlled VR Lazer got involved with the R50 billion Transnet locomotive tender. VR Lazer would later also become involved in the R10 billion Denel armored personnel carrier tender, and would blatantly take 50% of Denel Asia, putting them in the position of earning 50% of profits from Denel weapons sales to the East, although the Guptas don’t make weapons, Denel does.
The optimum Coal mine was acquired after Eskom made it impossible for Glencore to stay on as the owner of Optimum.
The Guptas, using taxpayer monopoly capital, acquired Optimum with a prepayment of almost R600 million from Eskom, and they dipped into the R1,3 billion Optimum rehabilitation fund.
It has been widely reported that the Guptas are paid preferential prices for their coal, also from the Brakfontein mine that started supplying Eskom at a time when they had no water license.
Eskom would also give the Guptas at least R52 million to hold monthly breakfast meetings, broadcast free on charge by Hlaudi TV.
Of course, the Guptas supplied the State with Sahara computers that are no secret.
Then the Free State government bought the Guptas a free farm at Vrede in the Free State and wasted at least an R150 millions of TAXPAYER MONOPOLY CAPITAL, to fund the project. The project ended when all the cows died.
The Gupta newspaper The New Age only make a profit because of disproportionate national and provincial government advertising in The New Age, national and provincial government and the SAA also by The New Age in bulk, to be distributed for free (Nobody wants it). The New Age was also used as a money laundering channel-to-channel kickback money in a bribery racket the Guptas were running with contracts at Transnet (Source amaBhungane).
The Gupta letterbox company Homix was initially used to channel this bribe money overseas, including an R100 million bribe that Neotel paid to Homix, to obtain a tender with Transnet, under Brian Molefe’s watch.
Another case of TAXPAYER MONOPOLY CAPITAL was when the IDC gave the Guptas an R250 million loan in 2010 to buy the Shiva uranium mine. [Another State bonanza for the Guptas – (M&G)].
By 2014 this amount grew to R399 million with interest. The Guptas, unable to pay back the money, gave the IDC a small equity stake, just 3,6 % of Shiva.
Shiva is today worth R14-16 billion on the JSE, although the company is actually unprofitable.
If say the Russians take the company off their hands in the Russian nuclear deal, the Guptas would walk away with that valuation, without ever taking money out of their pocket. Taxpayer monopoly capital. Don’t forget Duduzane Zuma is a shareholder in all the Gupta companies.
In addition, the Guptas are as safe as can come because Zuma783 tightly controls the Justice and Police cluster.
Opinion by Daniel Sutherland
