Hanging Out With Sharks

On Tuesday 5 February 2019 The Judicial Commission of Inquiry into Allegations of State Capture was hearing evidence from its own investigator Frank Dutton.

He told the commission, headed by Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo, that Dudu Myeni, the chairperson of the Jacob G Zuma Foundation, had somehow got access to a confidential anti-corruption task team docket in which management services firm Bosasa, now known as African Global Operations, was implicated in corruption.

The docket, said Dutton, had been shown to former Bosasa COO Angelo Agrizzi by Myeni at the Sheraton Hotel in Pretoria, some time between 22-23 September 2015. It was confirmed that Myeni had been booked into room 616 of the hotel at that time. (Agrizzi had earlier testified that he bought her a Louis Vuitton handbag and that before it was handed to her, it had been stuffed with R300,000 in cash.)

At about the same time that Dutton was testifying, Noseweek journalist Jonathan Erasmus walked into the offices of the KwaZulu-Natal Sharks Board, a provincial government building in Durban. Noseweek had been tipped off that, fittingly, the Jacob G Zuma Foundation shared the Sharks Board premises – and that Myeni had her office there.

The centerpiece of the entrance lobby is a chess board. When Erasmus looked at it, the White King was in check by his black opponent’s Queen supported by a juvenile Pawn. A superficial look would suggest that the white king was in trouble, but on closer inspection an experienced chess player would quickly realise that the board has been fixed – the placements were just too unnatural to occur in normal play. Someone had captured the game. It was rigged.

On the board, the words “this is life, make the right move” are inscribed. Below the board is a picture of former president Jacob Zuma.