Crucial security functions at Parliament, the South African Revenue Service (Sars), the KwaZulu-Natal legislature, two parastatals and several big private companies are in the hands of a firm with a history of corrupt practices, the Mail & Guardian can reveal.
Africa Strategic Asset Protection (Asap) won a R32-million access-control contract and a R12-million asset-tracking contract for Parliament in what appear to be clear cases of tender-rigging.
Asap still has a R450 000-per-month maintenance contract at the legislature, despite repeated South African Police Service (SAPS) complaints that the company’s poor performance threatens security at premises frequented by MPs, Cabinet ministers and government officials.
Asap also stands to earn millions in commission after a Chinese company it represents won a massive tender from Sars for scanners that will enable customs officials to look inside containers without opening them.
And it helped supply electronic snooping equipment to the National Communications Centre, which helps law enforcement and intelligence agencies spy on telephone and internet traffic.
Asap and its subsidiaries have contracts at Coega, the National Prosecuting Authority, PetroSA and oil company BP.
The company is bidding for more than R20-million of work at the Pretoria ministerial estate, Bryntirion, and other public and private-sector tenders.
Further afield, it has been involved in a controversial Nigerian airport contract and a bid to provide security technology for the palace of Swaziland’s King Mswati III.
An inside man
Asap won almost complete control of Parliament’s access technology, surveillance cameras and X-ray scanning equipment in a series of tenders beginning in 2001, in highly irregular circumstances.
The M&G has established that:
- Russel Christopher, the intelligence and security adviser to then-speaker of the National Assembly Frene Ginwala, received and continues to receive large payments and expensive gifts from Asap.
- Shane Jacobs, a consultant employed by engineers Lewis & De Kroon to help the Public Works Department develop tender documents and assess applicants, was effectively an employee of Asap at the same time. He received and continues to receive regular payments from the company he was supposed to help evaluate.
- Jacques du Plessis, a former policeman who heads Asap, paid kickbacks to both Jacobs and Christopher.
- The late Thobile ”Tall” Mtwazi, who was Nelson Mandela’s chief bodyguard and owned 67% of Asap, helped smooth the political path for the company.
The installations at Parliament gave Asap a foot in the door at provincial legislatures. It recently completed an R11,7-million installation at the KwaZulu-Natal legislature in Pietermaritzburg after Jacobs and Christopher advised on its security needs.
Christopher, Jacobs and Asap managing director Jacques du Plessis deny any impropriety.
Scan this
Christopher was uncomfortably close to Sars during the complex tender process for its container scanner purchase. During the first tender round, Asap formed part of a consortium, Thibela, short-listed to form a public-private partnership that would install and manage the scanners.
When Sars cancelled that tender and opted to buy the scanners outright, Nuctech, the Chinese company represented in South Africa by Asap, won the tender. Asap stands to earn a minimum of 3% commission on this deal. The value of the tender has been put at roughly R1-billion, which would earn Asap R30-million, but Du Plessis told the M&G the precise amount was still being negotiated.
Christopher was employed at Sars from May 2006 to March this year, when the tender was being evaluated. He had been headhunted by, and reported directly to, Sars general manager for risk Pete Richer, who served on the eight-person tender committee.
During the latter part of this period he was also being paid R78 000 per month by Asap, through an associate company. More recently, he appears to have received R140 000 for one month’s work.
Sars communications chief Logan Wort was adamant that Christopher’s work — drafting a report — had no bearing on the scanner contract, and that no procurement decisions arose from his work there. ”We emphatically believe that he was not in a position to influence the tender in any way,” Wort said, adding that the process had been ”triple audited”, and that Sars had been unaware at the time of Asap’s relationship with Nuctech.
How to win friends
In October 2000, the Public Works Department appointed consulting engineers Lewis & De Kroon (LDK) to develop a specification for a revamped access control system in Parliament and to help evaluate tenders. They were required to be independent of any company that might tender.
Christopher drove the process, and told the M&G he was trying to address security worries while making Parliament more accessible to the people.
In fact Jacobs was already close to both Christopher and Asap. In October 1999 Christopher wrote a glowing letter of recommendation for him on parliamentary stationery. Jacobs was also instrumental in Asap’s reinvention as an empowerment company.
”Shane introduced me to Thobile,” Asap’s Du Plessis told the M&G, explaining how he had met his 67% black economic empowerment partner.
Jacobs’s and Christopher’s clear conflict of interest deepened as the tender process gathered momentum, and Jacobs was appointed as a consultant for LDK.
At an early meeting of the ”client and professional team” on April 11, Christopher represented Parliament. LDK was represented by Jacobs and a senior engineer, minutes show. Christopher had already instructed all concerned to treat the process as ”secret”.
On April 30 2001, the company agreed to pay a trust controlled by Jacobs ”the minimum of R12 000 per month … for a contract period of three years”. In the same month, Jacobs also billed LDK for R76 189.
The tender was awarded to Asap two months later.
By June 2002, with LDK signing off on the contract’s progress, and public works payments beginning to flow to Asap, Jacobs was regularly presenting the company with monthly invoices for R20 000.
Jacobs admits receiving payments from both Asap and LDK, but denies acting as player and referee. ”I can wear many hats,” he said. ”I have that ability, which is hard to find.”
He said he had informed managers at public works and LDK of this. But the public works manager concerned, Chris Wallem, denied this. ”I have no recollection of him telling me that,” Wallem said. He declined to comment further. It seems Christopher also wore many hats.
His mother and her husband are directors of Zoyus Security Consultants, a company through which Asap continues to channel large sums. Zoyus submitted its first invoice in May 2001, and by March 2002 was regularly invoicing Asap for amounts ranging up to R250 000. That year alone, Zoyus was paid at least R1-million.
Questioned about this, Jacobs said he controlled Zoyus and that the payments were intended to reward him for marketing Asap. Du Plessis also said the money was a ”success-based” fee for Jacobs. Neither admitted knowledge of Zoyus’s relationship with Christopher.
Christopher denied knowing anything about Zoyus, saying that while he was close to his mother, he had a difficult relationship with her husband.
”Someone is really out to get us, this is making me sick,” he said.
But Christopher was clearly pressuring Jacobs to pay him kickbacks.
In an email dated September 5 2001, Jacobs writes to Asap: ”R has been speaking to me about the 50% payment. The company has to pay 50% back on every payment received by the company from the client. It is very important that this is done because this is what was agreed … Mr R has called me yesterday to ask if the transfer has been done … I thought I would put this on an email to you as the phones cannot be trusted.”
Confronted, Jacobs claimed the email referred to another Asap supplier for work done on the R12-million asset-tracking project. That project began more than two years later.
Christopher’s credibility is further damaged by the fact that he bought Cuban cigars worth more than R30 000 from a store at Cape Town’s V&A Waterfront between February and July 2003, and Asap paid.
Christopher claimed he had picked up the cigars as a favour for Jacobs. ”He had a cigar club, he phoned me, and I was at the waterfront, so he asked me to fetch them.” He admitted smoking a few of them.
But Jacobs and Du Plessis contradict this, saying the cigars were bought as part of an arrangement with Mtwazi, who would hand them out as gifts to MPs.
More recently, Asap has been paying Christopher through two companies of which Jacobs is a director, vehicle-tracking specialist B’smart Solutions and Andulela Communications. These payments appear to have overlapped with Christopher’s time at Sars.
Jacobs, Du Plessis and Christopher initially denied this, but are contradicted by internal correspondence.
On November 16 last year Jacobs wrote to Du Plessis: ”Russel needs us to look after him for the next six months financially with a salary, we have decided to incorporate him into B’smart as a director of marketing where he will be pursuing government sector directly and the 2010 World Cup. He requires a minimum of R78 000 per month starting 25th November 2006, he will also require a thirteen [sic] cheque. B’smart will invoice Asap for this amount including VAT.”
On May 24 2007, the payments began to be routed through Andulela Communications, and the invoice for that month, also sent to Du Plessis, is for R140 000.
Du Plessis told the M&G he had never heard of Andulela. He said B’smart helped Asap prepare tender documents.
Meanwhile, payments to Zoyus continue, and other Asap correspondence further contradicts the claim that they were intended for Jacobs.
On August 14 2006 Jacobs wrote to Du Plessis: ”I know you are busy with lots of shit, but can we please complete the transactions with Z, so that I can get some peace in my life, we need to finalise with the final amount of 300K, THIS IS BECOMING A HEAD ACHE, LETS GET IT DONE.”
And on February 12 this year he wrote: ”Zoyus has an expectation of profit share on the last project completed. A payment of R500 000 + VAT is required as soon as possible. This payment will make the principles [sic] aware of Asap commitment to all other future contracts. Therefore it is very important that we maintain the relationship for the future business which is to be extremely lucrative. Please advise when this payment can be made as I need to report back soonest.”
Parliamentary public affairs chief Luzuko Jacobs said: ”We are not aware of any untoward practices, but if there was any wrongdoing we hope the matter will be thoroughly investigated.”
SAPS spokesperson Vish Naidoo said the police preferred to deal with problems internally so as not to reveal security deficiencies. Police training would help mitigate the impact of any problems, he added.
LDK’s Paul von Zwiklitz refused to speak to the M&G.
The Department of Public Works did not respond to emailed and telephonic requests for comment.