Former Transnet CFO Anoj Singh File picture: Itumeleng English/African News Agency ANA)
The Commission of Inquiry into State Capture will continue to hear Transnet-related evidence from its former chief financial officer, Anoj Singh, and later from former Public Enterprises minister Malusi Gigaba.
Gigaba has continued to dispel allegations made to the Zondo Commission by his estranged wife, Norma Mngoma, telling the commission that she could not be trusted because she kept a deep secret from him for over a decade.
According to Gigaba, when he first met Mngoma, she portrayed herself a wealthy woman and told him that she had inherited a handsome sum of money and assets from her late father, who had lived in New York.
However, Gigaba said it was only last year that he found out Mngoma’s inheritance came from her late fiancé, who lived in South Africa.
According to Gigaba, the man was engaged to Mngoma and died in 2010.
The former minister has labelled his estranged wife as an “accomplished” liar and disputed her affidavit completely. His appearance at the Inquiry is scheduled for 4pm.
Singh will take the stand on Thursday at 10am.
He is at the tail-end of giving evidence related to dodgy transactions that saw the Gupta enterprise pocket billions of Rands during his tenure at Transnet and Eskom.
Zondo has called on Singh to explain how the Guptas were able to make away with billions of rand under his watch at the parastatal, saying Singh was either party to their agenda or simply too incompetent to notice.
“Either you were party to their agenda or you were so incompetent that you couldn’t see all of this. There may be another scenario, but I can’t think of anything else,” Zondo said.
Singh has been fumbling along with his testimony, either unable to provide decent answers or flatly denying any wrongdoing. He also stunned the inquiry when he said that the highly irregular contract for the procurement of 1064 locomotives - that set the scene for the greatest Gupta looting - was “quite a significant achievement” in South African history.
“I mean you don’t have a company that orders 1 100 locomotives at any given time,” Singh said.
But, Zondo interrupted him saying: “Do you think people will remember that more than the corruption?
“That’s the first thing that comes to people’s minds when we talk about those transactions – the corruption,” Zondo said.
Political Bureau