A profitable year for Zuma Inc

And it is not just President Jacob Zuma who is a money magnet with an assortment of people lining up to pay his bills over the years as revealed in a leaked report published by the Mail & Guardian. While the reported R248m needed to upgrade Zuma's Nkandla homestead and his many benefactors have grabbed the main headlines, Legalbrief reports that over the years the tender fairy has smiled favourably upon members of the extended Zuma family, leading the DA, Cosatu and the SACP and others last year to call for greater scrutiny of state tenders awarded to them, a suggestion rejected by Zuma, according to reports on the News24 site. While nephew Khulubuse is the most well known Zuma in business, the President's brothers, sons and wives are also involved in multiple businesses. The vast network of private business interests built up by the Zuma family was laid bare for the first time in a Mail & Guardian Online report in 2010 which noted that the combined business interests of the Zuma clan accounted for 134 company directorships or memberships of close corporations, of which 83 had come about after Zuma became ANC leader in December 2007. The report noted that their interests range across the economic spectrum and include property, resources, trade, mining, telecommunications and information technology. Full report on the Mail & Guardian Online site First report on the News24 site Second report on the News24 site

In the most recent Zuma business deal, transport businessman and former taxi owner Mandla Gcaba, a nephew of the President, has distanced himself from claims that he used his political influence to win a R300m Port Shepstone bus tender, notes a Sunday Tribune report. It says the contract was awarded without open bidding to Ugu Transport, a consortium 80%-owned by taxi operators and 20% by smaller bus operators - including Gcaba's company, Amandla Emicabango Trading. Gcaba denied being given preferential treatment and is quoted in the report as saying: 'We have nothing to do with the Port Shepstone tender. A group of taxi operators won the tender, then hit a snag. We were approached to help and we came in at that time. I came in long after it had been awarded.' Full Sunday Tribune report

Meanwhile, in the latest development following revelations of how Zuma's lifestyle is funded, the DA has asked SARS to probe whether the President paid donations' tax on his alleged R7m windfall. A report in The Mercury says the DA has asked the Receiver of Revenue to investigate whether Zuma paid taxes on alleged donations of more than R7m between 1995 and 2006. Details of the alleged payments were given by auditors KPMG in a draft report commissioned by the NPA with the aim of using it in the case involving corruption charges against Zuma. The charges were dropped in 2009 by the NPA head at the time, Mokotedi Mpshe. The DA's spokesperson on Finance, Tim Harris, said this week he had written to SARS commissioner Oupa Magashula asking him to investigate whether Zuma and 'his donors' had paid the appropriate taxes arising from the alleged funds. 'I have also completed an RSN01 form with SARS in which I have reported the President for suspected non-compliance,' Harris is reported to have said. He added various payments to Zuma - ranging from about R4m allegedly given to him by his financial adviser Schabir Shaik, and R1m from Nelson Mandela - could have been classified as donations in terms of the Income Tax Act. Full report in The Mercury (subscription needed)

Depending on the results of voting at the ANC's Mangaung conference that starts this weekend, 2012 could yet turn out to be an annus horribilus for Jacob Zuma in light of the crucial evidence against him - evidence that was kept hidden when the NPA abandoned its prosecution of him. The Mail & Guardian has published the key findings of the confidential September 2006 forensic report that auditors KPMG prepared for Zuma's trial. The report exposes the President as a 'kept politician' - a financial freeloader who accepted money and favours on a routine and increasingly extravagant basis. Running to about 500 pages, the 'draft' report - although it is understood to be the final version - is based on tens of thousands of documents Scorpions investigators had seized from Shaik, Zuma and others. Prosecutors had applied for a postponement to formulate a new charge sheet based on additional material seized during the August 2005 raids that followed Shaik's conviction - including, for the first time, raids on Zuma's home and office. They also asked for time to deal with Zuma's challenge to the legality of those raids. As the M&G report notes, Judge Herbert Msimang refused the postponement and the case was struck from the roll without the report being tabled. It remained hidden throughout the protracted legal battles that saw the NPA clear the path to prosecution and until April 2009 when Mpshe, buried it by deciding to abandon the case just days before the national election that propelled Zuma to the presidency. Full Mail & Guardian Online report KPMG report Zuma payments podcast

The forensic report linked Zuma to another arms deal beneficiary: German industrial conglomerate MAN Ferrostaal (now called Ferrostaal), says a City Press report. The company was the leading partner in the German consortium that SA awarded an R8bn contract to build three submarines. The KPMG report reveals that MAN Ferrostaal paid at least R230 000 for Zuma's benefit. This raises new questions about Zuma's role and influence in the controversial R70bn arms transaction, says City Press. It notes he had previously been linked to a R500 000-a-year bribe from French arms company Thales, which was awarded the R1.3bn tender to provide technology to the navy's four new corvette ships. Full City Press report

The DA has taken legal steps to secure documents that could shed light on how the NPA came to that decision to abandon the Zuma prosecution, but despite court backing it has so far been unsuccessful. 'The DA has been waiting since March this year for the record of decision which led to the corruption charges being dropped. Both the NPA and Zuma's legal team have used every delaying tactic in the book to ensure that we do not obtain this record,' James Selfe is quoted as saying in a Mail & Guardian report. Selfe said there now appears to be sufficient grounds to establish that the decision to drop charges against Zuma was 'both irrational and unlawful' and that the DA believes it would be 'quite possibly justified' in going directly to court to review the decision without having to wait for the record. 'Subject to the advice of our advocates, this is exactly what we propose to do,' he said. 'The full story will come out eventually, but until then Zuma must take a leave of absence from his office until these allegations have been proved or discounted.' he said. Full Mail & Guardian report

Politics is so riddled with patronage that the latest revelations about payments made to Zuma have been dismissed, say analysts. A Mail & Guardian Online report notes that the story was widely read over the weekend but reaction to it was muted. The Presidency declined to comment on the matter at the weekend, as did the ANC. Political analyst Adam Habib said reactions had been muted because nobody was surprised by the latest revelations. 'Is the President a kept man? It's been a widely accepted fact, both inside the alliance and without. People are resigned to that.' Habib said that in any other society such patronage would be seen as a security threat but this wasn't the case in SA, where both politicians and the citizenry had become cynical about their leaders. Susan Booysen, politics lecturer at the University of the Witwatersrand, said the public had become 'saturated with reports on wheeling and dealing, enrichment and kept politicians'. 'That is probably the scariest thing about it all. It is so pervasive that it does not actually draw that much attention. That is a severe indictment on the state of SA politics,' the report quotes her as saying. Full Mail & Guardian Online report See also a Business Day editorial