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Vincent Smith, a former ANC deputy, in his court appearance.
- Vincent Smith’s arrest in connection with Bosasa’s corruption shows that the evidence given about other high-profile politicians is credible.
- The case against Smith stalled in 2019, prompting intervention by the plaintiff, Paul O’Sullivan’s nonprofit Forensics for Justice.
- Former Bosasa boss turned whistleblower, Angelo Agrizzi, was also charged, along with Smith, based on his own evidence.
The arrest on Thursday of former ANC MP Vincent Smith has given evidence against high-profile politicians in connection with Bosasa’s corruption a massive injection of credibility.
Smith turned himself in to the Hawks and briefly appeared before the Specialized Business Court at the Palm Ridge Magistrates Court. He maintained his innocence and was granted bail of R30,000.
His co-defendant, former Bosasa boss Angelo Agrizzi, was also charged, but did not appear due to illness.
News24 reported that the indictment was devastating for Smith. It detailed his change of mind about Bosasa during sessions of the parliamentary portfolio committee for several years, apparently coinciding with his first meeting with Bosasa and then receiving money from the company.
Agrizzi was being charged for his role in making the payments to Smith.
The case, which represented the first political collar of the NPA’s Directorate of Investigations (ID), was opened by Paul O’Sullivan’s Forensics for Justice, a non-profit organization that investigated and exposed corruption.
O’Sullivan detailed on Thursday how she intervened when it appeared the case had stalled in 2019, and asked the national director of the Public Ministry, defender Shamila Batohi, to move the case to identification, which she did, O said. ‘Sullivan.
He added that Bosasa and Smith had come on his radar in an investigation into the South African Passenger Rail Agency (Prasa) in relation to SA Fence and Gate.
News24 had seen evidence confirming that O’Sullivan closely followed the case and pushed for it to be completed.
News24 first disclosed the payments to Smith and the installation of a security system at his home on September 2, 2018, after confronting Smith about the payments at his home in Roodepoort.
READ | ANC Senior MP Vincent Smith Received Cash, Bosasa CCTV
A week after the Smith exposition, News24 published details of the security and CCTV systems installed in the homes of various politicians, including Gwede Mantashe, Nomvula Mokonyane, Thabang Makwetla and the former Prasa Mbulelo Gincana procurement manager and former president. of SAA, Dudu Myeni.
Testing of the facilities was provided by Richard le Roux, a former Bosasa employee commissioned by Gavin Watson and Agrizzi to carry out the facilities.
Agrizzi gave more testimony about the corruption of Bosasa, but he was suffering the same fate as those he wanted to expose.
Smith’s arrest gave the Le Roux and Agrizzi evidence an injection of credibility.
News24 was able to verify that the installations were carried out at the houses of Mantashe, Mokonyane, Makwetla, Myeni and Gingcana through text messages sent to Le Roux and by visiting some of the sites in question.
Mokonyane appeared before the Zondo Commission on several occasions to answer questions about his relationship with Bosasa and the security updates.
In February 2019, Mantashe allowed the media to tour its three homes in Boksburg and Cala, in the Eastern Cape, to highlight the installations made by Bosasa, which included CCTV systems and perimeter lighting.
However, he insisted that no electric fences had been installed on his properties.
ANALYSIS | What Gwede Mantashe wants you to know about her Bosasa security systems
But the cameras and lights installed by Bosasa were there for all to see.
Mantashe, who was secretary general of the ANC at the time, said the systems were paid for by former Bosasa director Papa Leshabane, a family friend, after initially claiming that the ANC had borne the costs.
It had never been definitively proven that anyone actually paid for the systems, other than Bosasa.
The backdrop for this was that Bosasa, since 2004, has obtained more than R10 billion in government contracts and bribed to clear the way.
In 2009, the SIU finalized a report that found Bosasa had paid bribes to former correctional services commissioner Linda Mti and the department’s former chief financial officer, Patrick Gillingham.
A decade later, Agrizzi, Mti, Gillingham and other Bosasa staff were indicted in connection with the findings of the SIU report, only after Agrizzi blew the whistle and began to reveal details of the corruption.
It seemed that now that the Hawks and prosecutors had discovered that Agrizzi’s evidence was substantiated, it remained to be seen how long law enforcement would take to act on the others involved.
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