Fake News And Gaddafi's Loot: Two Great Pre-election Spoilers

NoseWeek didn’t get the $30m (R417,000,000) version of the Zuma/King Mswati III/ Muammar Gaddafi / Nkandla treasure story.

- Jack Lundin

That went to the Sunday Times which splashed it on their front page. Noseweek got an even more implausible $24 trillion one. Yes, US $24,000,000,000,000. And mind your naughts: that’s R333,600,000.000.000!

Back in 2011 former National Intelligence agent-turned-arms dealer Johan Erasmus and his New Generation Arms Management company were planning to make a killing selling a US-manufactured machine gun called the M134D Gatling minigun to the South African National Defence Force. Classified formally as a weapon of mass destruction, the minigun’s six swivelling barrels deliver 3,000 rounds per minute. Erasmus thought he could supply 400 of them to the SANDF and make a cool R1m profit on each.

One of the miniguns was flown over from Dillon Aero in October 2011 for demonstration to South African Special Forces, which duly took place at the Special Forces school at Murrayhill north of Pretoria. But the following March the Hawks seized the weapon, along with a large consignment of rocket-propelled grenades, machine guns, rifles and ammunition which Erasmus had brought into the country from Bulgaria.

The Hawks claimed irregularities with the import permits. The weapons are all still locked in SANDF bunkers, although last December the Priority Crimes Litigation Unit (Hawks) admitted that, back in 2014, a decision had been made not to prosecute NGAM since it could not be proved that the company had the necessary guilty knowledge when it applied for and received the import permits.

The hiatus, claims Erasmus, forced his NGAM company into liquidation. He maintains that it’s all a plot by Aramco and Denel, who have set their sights on putting him out of business so they can import and sell the minigun themselves, with the connivance of greedy SANDF generals and a helping hand from the Hawks and the South African Revenue Service.