“We have always suspected there is something and these cartels are colluding and fixing prices,” the National African Federated Chamber of Commerce president told m24i in the wake of the tender-fixing scandal.

He says the government should blacklist companies found guilty of collusion and corruption and added the Hawks should not grant any immunity to any wrongdoer.

“They would sit around the table and plan around a tender that is not out yet, and bid as a big group with one price. You, as a black small contractor, will have no chance of getting the contract. “We can’t allow something like this to happen because they have ripped off the taxpayers and they are anti-transformation,” he said.

“Politicians are always blamed and yet they are not the ones fixing prices but the contractors,” charged Mavundla.

Stefanutti Stocks acknowledged and took responsibility for having participated in unlawful and cartel-like behaviour, which had been a feature of the construction industry for years, said chief executive Willie Meyburgh.

His comments come as the state prepares to launch a massive R844 billion public infrastructure development programme.

The Hawks investigation follows a probe, launched in February 2011, by the Competition Commission into the construction industry, its biggest investigation to date. The commission has said 20 firms have confessed to irregular conduct in more than 300 projects and tenders worth close to R30 billion.

Meyburgh said that after their approach to the NPA other companies had done the same. He said he hoped the process would restore the integrity of the construction industry.

Murray & Roberts chief executive Henry Laas said his company was the first in the sector to bring anti-competitive behaviour and collusive misconduct to the attention of the Competition Commission.

“The conduct in the past was the isolated and independent action of individuals,” said Laas.

He added the misconduct was related to people no longer working for the company or for companies acquired by Murray & Roberts in 2006/7.

Laas said Murray & Roberts identified a “limited number” of projects where the Competition Act may have been transgressed.

A WBHO spokesperson said the company was engaged in discussions with the Competition Commission which involved “a small number of projects”.

WBHO said it was not aware of any criminal investigation and rejected allegations its executives acted in such a manner.

Group Five chief executive Mike Upton said his company was cooperating with the Competition Commission and had to keep details confidential.

Aveng chief executive Roger Jardine said his company had worked to eradicate unethical practices, and had investigated instances where it was aware of breaches and irregularities.

It had also cooperated fully with the Competition Commission.

Competition Commission spokesperson Trudi Makhaya said she could not comment on any developments as investigations were still pending. Neither the NPA nor the police responded to requests for comment, but an NPA spokesman said the agency was concerned about the publication of the affidavits, which “cannot be allowed to go ahead”.

John Willmott is now an executive at a major Australian construction company and did not respond to requests for comment. Neither did Richard Saxby, now an independent consultant.

Graham Browne’s only comment was that he had cooperated with the Competition Commission. Duncan Barry and Mike Wylie said their response was the same as WBHO’s and that of Hylton Macdonald was included in Aveng’s comments.

Neither Trevor Robinson nor Basil Read responded to requests for comment.

M24i can today exclusively reveal details of a decades-long, formal kickback and price-fixing racket that allegedly involved household names among industry leaders – and which shows how the South African taxpayer was routinely ripped off with inflated project prices.

Details of the scheme are revealed in at least 11 affidavits made by executives from Stefanutti Stocks – one of the country’s biggest construction firms – to a Hawks serious economic offences investigator and the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA).

The statements have also been handed to the Competition Commission for its probe into construction industry tender-rigging thought to involve contracts worth at least R30 billion.

The affidavits claim the projects that were “fixed” included Soccer City in Joburg, the Coega development project in the Eastern Cape, the Green Point soccer stadium, the Nelson Mandela Bridge in Joburg and the Gautrain, among dozens of others.

In the affidavits the executives admit they may be guilty of fraud, corruption and racketeering, and offer their full cooperation to police investigators. They hope to gain immunity from prosecution, but so far only one executive has been granted this.Among the industry leaders named as having actively been involved in the bid-rigging arrangements are:

» Duncan Barry, a managing director at WBHO;

» Richard Saxby, former CEO of Stocks & Stocks civil engineering and an MD at Murray & Roberts;

» John Willmott, former group managing director of Concor and former executive director at Group Five;

» Mike Wylie, CEO of WBHO;

» Trevor Robinson, a former director at Concor; and

» Hylton Macdonald, group risk manager at Aveng and former managing director of Grinaker-LTA.

Captain James Hills of the Hawks said in his affidavit there was evidence of criminal conduct involving the top five construction companies: Murray & Roberts, Group Five, WBHO, Basil Read and Aveng.

Additional documents detail how this formal collusion used mechanisms like “cover prices”, “dummy tenders” and hidden “tender fees”. The Hawks have been investigating corruption and fraud in the construction industry since October 2011 and m24i understands that the prosecution of top executives might follow.

Stefanutti chief executive Willem Meyburgh, who earned more than R500 000 per month last year, in his affidavit lifted the veil on a secret society in the construction industry in which contracts and tenders were fixed.

Meyburgh told m24i Stefanutti acknowledged and took responsibility for having participated in “unlawful conduct which has been a feature of the construction industry for a number of years”.

Stefanutti executive director Schalk Ackerman, who, according to Businessweek, earned R435 000 per month last year, admitted in his affidavit that he was a “coordinator” of the secret society.

Both Ackerman and Meyburgh admitted their possible complicity in fraud, corruption and racketeering.

Said Ackerman: “At these meetings, participants agreed which company would be awarded a particular tender. “A schedule of project allocations was maintained on the basis of perceived market share.”

He named executives from all the other big construction companies who sat in on the secret meetings in order to decide who was going to get which contracts.

At the height of the collusion, Ackerman, in the late 1990s and 2000s, was the managing director of Grinaker-LTA (now part of Aveng), and listed 23 major projects where his company colluded to fix contracts and tenders.

He also listed 68 cases where money was owed to Grinaker-LTA or paid out by them to other construction companies after fixing contracts. “This allocation system was standard practice in the industry and . . . had been in place for a very, very long time. It was part of the job of a managing director,” said Ackerman.

“Clients were misled and defrauded,” admitted Stefanutti Middle East head Casper Steenkamp, who also wants indemnity from fraud and corruption.

The police launched an investigation into tender-rigging after Ackerman approached NPA senior prosecutor Glynnis Breytenbach and made an affidavit about his complicity in tender-rigging. Ackerman said in his affidavit that lawyers warned him he might face criminal prosecution. He decided to confess in order to turn state witness.

10 steps to rigging a tender by CityPress

Statistician-General Pali Lehohla yesterday revealed that two top Statistics SA officials involved in the R3,4 billion national Census have faced disciplinary charges over alleged irregularities which could have bungled the entire survey.
The admission comes amid months of criticism from some statisticians who question the validity of the final count and talk of behind-the-scenes drama over the Census survey which is critical to government policy making and budgeting.
Lehola confirmed to Media24 Investigations yesterday that a deputy director general at Statistics South Africa, Dr Jairo Arrow, had gone on early retirement last Friday after facing a disciplinary hearing for “dereliction of duty and gross incompetence”.
Another senior statistician who had been responsible for the results of the census post-enumeration survey, Marlize Pistorius, is also facing a disciplinary hearing which resumes next month, he said.
Jarrow and Pistorius have both declined to comment.
The post-enumeration survey is a second, smaller population count to determine the undercount – and therefore by how much the initial census results have to be adjusted – to arrive at the final count.
Lehohla said the root of the action against the two were “methodological and computational irregularities” which, left unaddressed, “would have provided wrong figures of the census by province as well as a wrong national total figure”.
Two independent statisticians from the University of Cape Town, Tom Moultrie and Rob Dorrington, have publicly raised questions over the integrity of the post-enumeration survey and question the reliability of the final count.
Lehohla denied, however, that the drama involving the two officials in any way compromised the integrity of the census results.
He said disciplinary notices were issued to them on 7 December last year.
Lehohla said: “As the Statistician-General, when Dr Arrow and Ms Pistorius presented me with the Census [post-enumeration survey] results in mid-July, after applying my mind, I immediately pointed to the incoherence of the algebraic behaviour in the results,” Lehohla said.
He said he also made the independent Statistics Council of South Africa and international experts aware of these anomalies.
He said he had “repeatedly” asked Arrow and Pistorius to get to the root of the problem, before identifying the problem himself on 3 August last year.
He then asked the two to “fix” it, “provid[ing] further resources to assist them, but more importantly to supervise them, given the gravity of the methodological and computational irregularities and their implications on a R3.4 billion project”.
“Ms Pistorius and Dr Arrow argued that the results they presented to me in July would not change,” he said.
He said he removed them and brought others into work on the project.
“The evidence is that the results they presented were totally wrong and there were methodological and computational errors in what they presented to me,” said Lehohla.
Sources claim that Arrow went over Lehohla’s head and asked Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan to intervene.
Lehohla claimed Arrow had made “derogatory insinuations” of which he became aware later.
“As you may well be aware, the census results are critical for the management of democracy. They are used for the annual allocation of about R350 billion of the national fiscus. As such any one charged with this responsibility is conscious of the depth of responsibility for undertaking this task.”
Arrow was due to retire at the end of January and had presented Lehohla with a written apology before taking early retirement last Friday, he said.
Presented with Lehohla’s version of events, statistician Prof. Tom Moultrie said: “The timeline of events described speaks to the possibility – and our documented concern – that the results of the census were rushed, given that it is now revealed that the [post-enumeration survey] process was reopened some two months before the results were signed off by Statistics Council in October 2012…”
Moultrie said he and his colleague continued to have concerns about the plausibility of aspects of the Census relating, for example, to the age distribution in the population and fertility trends.

South Africa’s wave of service delivery protests is far greater than previously imagined with official police data revealing more than 3 000 protests in the past four years.
Media24 Investigations used access to information law to ask the South African Police Service for official records showing service delivery protests across the country since January 2009 [see below for links to the police records in Pdfs].
The data shows that there is a service delivery protest – either violent or peaceful – at least once every two days across the country.
The true scale of the protests is far greater than other estimates.
Monitoring agency Municipal IQ recorded 410 “major service delivery protests” from 2009 to 2012. The organisation records sustained protests over multiple days as a single occurrence.
The University of the Western Cape’s Service Delivery Protest Barometer, using a slightly broader definition but, like Municipal IQ, sources its data from media reports and other public records, arrived at about 720 protests from the beginning of 2009 to the end of August 2012.
Karen Heese of Municipal IQ says the large variance between their numbers and those of the police can be attributed to how the protests are counted – her organisation focuses solely on protests against the municipalities, while protests reflected in the police data could also reflect protests against other government bodies such as provincial governments.
“My understanding of the SAPS data is that it is per incident, so while we recorded say Olifantshoek as a single protest, there could well be hundreds of SAPS incidents reported, even perhaps on the same day,” she said.
The police records – which show protests specifically classified as service delivery related – show that there have been 3 258 service delivery protest in the country between January 2009 and November last year when the request for information was filed.
The data shows service delivery protests by residential areas and policing districts across South Africa and is the first time such a comprehensive count of service delivery protests has been made public.
The records reveal that Mmabatho in the North West had the highest number of service delivery protests Z 301, or one every 4.7 days over nearly four years.
Of those, 190 were peaceful and 111 were accompanied by unrest.
The Mmabatho district’s worst-hit neighbourhood was Taung, where a councillor’s home was burnt by protestors last year. Between 2009 and last year, Taung saw 32 protests classified by police as peaceful, and 10 that were deemed violent.
With 293 protests, Johannesburg had the second highest number of protests, with the worst-hit neighbourhoods being Lenasia and Soweto with 26 protests and 39 respectively over the past four years. Lenasia was the scene of violent protests in November last year when houses were bulldozed by the Gauteng Housing Department, and also in September 2011.
The Pretoria district was third with 235 protests over the same period.
One of the worst scenes of violent service delivery protests, the data shows, was the Nelspruit district, which had 106 violent protests and 61 peaceful protests. The worst-hit neighbourhood was KaNyamanzane with 18 violent protests since 2009, and only two peaceful ones.
The Northern Cape has also been the scene of a large proportion of violent protests, with the eastern part of the province recording 74 violent protests and 65 peaceful ones, with Noupoort recording 11 violent protests and Olifantshoek 10.
Spokesperson for Mbombela local municipality, Joseph Ngala, said that protests in KaNyamazane had been as a result of demands for water, roads, electricity and other basic services, and the last recorded protest action was in August last year.
“Service delivery protests are by their nature ‘seasonal’. Even when concerns or reasons are genuine, there will be opportunists who will turn them into political points scoring,” he said.

Official police records 1

Official police records 2

LIMPOPO businessman Lesiba Gwangwa, a co-accused in Julius Malema’s corruption trial, fabricated employees to win a multi-million rand state tender, court papers claim.

The allegations are contained in a PriceWaterhouseCoopers forensic report compiled by the auditing firm’s director Trevor White and presented to a judge in a recent North Gauteng High court application by the Asset Forfeiture Unit to sieze property belonging to Gwangwa and On-Point.

The report – while spelling out details of more than R12m in payments to Malema, the former ANC Youth League leader – also paints a picture of the lengths that On-Point when to win a Limpopo Roads and Transport tender worth more than R50m.

The contract gave it immense control over official contracts in the province and lies at the heart of the criminal case against Malema, Gwangwa and others.

According to the forensic report, On-Point used resumes and the names of unsuspecting people who didn’t even work for the company in its 2009 bid to the Limpopo roads and transport department for the R52m project management unit tender.

“From an analysis…., it was immediately apparent that none of the ….. 12 executive, senior and management team members were employed by On-Point at the date on which the Technical Bid was prepared,” said White in his report.

“In addition I examined all of the other remaining CVs and none of them reflected their current employer as On-Point,” said White in the report.

One of the people allegedly reflected as an employee of On-Point, Rethabile Mphonyo, had actually been employed by the South African Reserve Bank since 2009.

The report said Mphonyo was a family relative of On-Point director Kagisho Dichabe and had given him her CV while she was unemployed.

Mphonyo gave an affidavit to the investigators in which she said: “He (Dichabe) told me that he was trying to establish something and he will get back to me if it materializes. He never got back to me and I assumed that his plans did not materialize.”

A number of other people listed as employees of On-Point in its bid told the investigators that they had never heard of the company prior to the media coverage of its controversies.

One of the people who supposedly worked for On-Point was Takazviona Sande, who works for Bigen Africa Services, and told investigators that his profile may have been taken from website Linkedin.

“Prior to this, I had never heard of a company with the name of On-Point Engineers. I am also not familiar with the owners of the said business entity,” said Sande in his affidavit.

Johan Jansen van Vuuren was, according the report, apparently listed as part of the senior management team but said he had never worked for the company.

He had discussions about the Limpopo bid with Gwangwa and Dichabe and said that he was only approached in February 2010 by On-Point to design access roads for three projects.

On-Point was awarded the tender in 2009 and Public Protector Thuli Madonsela last year found it to have been irregularly awarded.

Gwanga and Dichaba did not respond to requests for comment.

Nearly R12m – that’s the pile of cash the state claims Julius Malema, the former ANC Youth League leader and now corruption-accused, got from his Limpopo cronies.

And, more than a month after Julius Malema was charged with money laundering in September last year, Malema still received cash payments from his alleged partner-in-crime, businessman Lesiba Gwangwa.

These and other startling claims about Malema’s alleged ill-gotten fortune are contained in affidavits that were handed to the North Gauteng High court to obtain an order to attach a Gwangwa farm. The affidavits were made by Willie Hofmeyr, deputy national director of public prosecutions, and Trevor White, director of forensic services of the auditing firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers.

The papers describe in detail the paper trail which they claim saw millions paid to Malema’s Ratanang trust account or to help pay for a farm for him.

The money, prosecutors charge, came after Gwangwa assisted the business associates get tenders and contracts from the Limpopo provincial government.

One of those named in the affidavits as a Malema benefactor with payments to his Ratanang Trust was high-flying property tycoon David Mabilu. Mabilu, who made headlines with a lavish R15m Mauritius wedding in 2011 which featured Malema and other political heavyweights as paid-for guests, confirmed to City Press this week making payments to the Ratanang trust.

However, Mabilu said the R300,000 he paid through his Vharanani Properties company in 2009 was a “donation” to build a church in Malema’s home village. He said the payments were disclosed in his company financial statements and that he had not been approached by prosecutors. In 2011, according to court documents, Mabilu also made payments of R2.44 million to a Gwangwa company.

At the time, Gwangwa’s On-Point was running a “a programme management unit” for the Limpopo transport department and which is alleged to have dispersed tenders in return for kick-backs. The papers do not say what Mabilu’s payment was for.

The affidavits were used to obtain a preservation order for the 139-hecatare Schuilkraal farm in Limpopo that Gwanga and Malema bought. The order was granted. Malema, Gwangwa and three other business associates are standing trial in Polokwane on multiple charges.

Malema is accused of using his political clout to win public contracts through a complex pyramid of firms. He faces 51 charges, including racketeering, corruption and fraud. The forensic audit by White paints a startling picture of both the millions of money that were allegedly laundered through Malema’s trust account as well as his subsequent spending spree. City Press reported last week that Malema was as a result of a R16 million tax bill facing bankruptcy, while his friends and allies have abandoned him in droves.

The affidavits chronicle how On-Point was awarded a R52 million contract for the programme management unit deal and how money flowed back to Malema. Thirteen payments from On-point to Ratanang totalling R1.3 million were made between October 2010 and November 2011. A further R6.353 million was deposited into Ratanag between January 2009 and November 2012. Half of it was in cash deposits.

Virtually all the cheques were also made out for cash. Cronies paid millions more to help Gwangwa and Malema to buy the farm, which is registered in the name of Gwama Properties. Gwangwa is the only director of this company.

“Ratanang was set up by Malema to be used as a conduit through which he could channel money,” said White in his affidavit. He concluded that Malema abused Ranatang for his own personal benefit – despite the fact that he wasn’t even the beneficiary of the trust. White described how Malema used Ratanang to fund his lavish lifestyle.

Between April 2009 and April 2011, Malema spent almost R400,000 at boutiques such as Guess, Armani, Louis Vuitton and Dunhill, the report claims. Malema wrote R40,000 and R50,000 cheques in one day to Vigano boutique store in Sandton. A company, which won a tender adjudicated by On-Point staffers, allegedly paid more than R382 000 towards Malema’s Mercedes-Benz Viano minibus, the affidavit said.

Malema said he was not going to comment on any of the detail in the affidavit as it was before court.

THE State is flip-flopping over the release of the raw matric subject marks for the 2012 examinations.

Umalusi, which is responsible for standardising the matric results prior to release, has provided unadjusted examination scores to Media24 Investigations for the past two years.

But now it says this was a mistake and that the data really belongs to the Department of Basic Education.

Media24 Investigations first requested the data from Umalusi two weeks ago when the results were released. The organisation said it would only be able to comply by this week Tuesday.

But on Tuesday, its CEO, Dr Mafu Rakometsi, back-pedalled and said the data actually belonged to the Department of Basic Education.

On Wednesday, the department’s chief director for national assessment and public examinations, Dr Rufus Poliah, said that our request was “rightly lodged with Umalusi and a response from Umalusi should be awaited”.

Umalusi then promised to hand over the data by Thursday.

On Thursday night, Umalusi’s spokesman said that “after consultation with the Department of Basic Education they have agreed to assume full responsibility for the custodianship of the raw data”.

The education department’s Dr Rufus Poliah failed to respond to follow-up requests yesterday.

Asked yesterday to explain his organisation’s position, Rakometsi responded: “Umalusi is independent of DBE, but we work closely with them in that the raw data that we standardise comes from the department. It is therefore not our data; it’s the department’s data.

“Our process is the standardision process, which we shared with journalists at the (release of the matric results) in December,” Rakometsi said.

“We realise we might have issued the information of the department by mistake,” he said.

He said the education department had not complained about Umalusi handing over the data to the media in the past.

Dr Edith Dempster of the University of KwaZulu Natal’s school of education, said Umalusi’s reticence to hand over the data may be because “the standardisation process is complex, and easily misinterpreted”.

“It is a valid statistical procedure, though, and I have no doubt that it is applied rigorously every year. I personally found [Umalusi’s 2011 release of the raw scores] very useful because it gave the raw average mark for each subject, and the average standardised mark. The average mark gives much more information than the pass rate, because it tells you about the mark distribution,” she said.

Prof. Servaas van der Berg, education economist with the University of Stellenbosch, said Umalusi may be reluctant to release the data in order to avoid conflict with the Department of Basic Education.

“Umalusi is supposed to be an independent organisation, but its role is determined to a degree by how useful it is deemed to the Department of Basic Education.

Derek Luyt, director at the Centre for Accountable Governance, said the central issue was that “the raw data should certainly be made available to the public. “There is absolutely no justifiable reason to withhold it. Dr Rakometsi has in the past noted that the statistical procedures for standardisation are complex and open to misunderstanding. Lots of things are. That’s no reason to keep them secret.

“On the contrary, the best way to get the biggest number of people to understand the process of standardisation is by making the raw data public.

“The bottom line is that you cannot have informed discussion if you don’t have access to the raw data.”

Former ANC Youth League firebrand Julius Malema, facing criminal prosecution and a R16m tax bill, says he is now treated like a leper by those who once supported him.

Speaking exclusively to M24i this week at his farm, recently attached by the Asset Forfeiture Unit (AFU), outside of Polokwane in Limpopo, Malema spoke of his tax and court woes, his future and how he was treated by the ANC on whose stage he once took the spotlight.

“I have lost a lot of friends. I am one person who believes that those who leave you during difficult moments were never with you even before…,” he said.

“We’ve seen friends vacillating. We’ve seen friends bowing to the pressure of the enemy. We’ve seen friends speaking in tongues and some are even so ashamed to be seen with you in public because to them you look like you’ve got leprosy and some don’t even take your calls. If they do they are very impatient,” said Malema.

Malema has been out in the cold since his expulsion from the ANC by its national disciplinary committee in February last year.

His fate was finally sealed at the ANC’s Mangaung conference in December last year when President Jacob Zuma was re-elected and Malema’s sympathisers failed to win key positions.

Malema – who says he now grows cabbages, tomatoes and tends to his cattle – said he had prepared himself for the treatment he was experiencing as he had seen it happen to Zuma.

“I have seen people literally running away from President Zuma when he was in trouble. It is the people today who are projecting themselves as the most loyal people of President Zuma.

“That is why I will never be treated for stress or depression because I have anticipated this type of conduct especially from pretenders who just hijacked the train and not knowing where it came from and where it was going,” Malema said.

In the interview Malema was still upbeat with flashes of rhetoric to match his trademark red designer shoes, vibrant shirt and cream Boss pants, but he looked a different person to the beret-wearing militant he once projected.

He conceded that all was done and dusted for him in the youth league.

“Our problems started with the demand to change the ownership pattern in South Africa and people thought it was a joke they ridiculed it (and) comedians made jokes about it, but we soldiered on,” he said.

He said the ANC was controlled by big interests and took a swipe at the billionaire Rupert family whom he said had once referred to the youth league as a mosquito.

“People should have analysed it there that Capital runs the ANC and South Africa. And once they identified the youth league as an irritating mosquito they went to look for a ‘doom’ [insecticide]. Cyril Ramaphosa became a ‘doom’ and the ANC became a ‘doom’ to kill the ANC youth league out of the instructions of the Ruperts,” charged Malema.

Malema continued to protest his innocence in the face of a bevy of criminal charges including racketeering.

“Racketeering… it is a serious charge and to be classified like a mafia who runs a an illegal operation… They can’t charge druglords with such a serious charge but they charge me! I still want to understand,” he said.

He said his future was now in farming. He said even if he lost his farm their were traditional leaders who would give him land.

All he wished for was for rain so his vegetables would grow.

Former ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema faces bankruptcy in his battle with the SA Revenue Service as his friends and allies abandon him in droves.

Malema spoke this week of his troubles with the law and how he was now treated by a leper by those whom he had once counted on as friends and allies (see separate story).

M24i has learnt from two sources that Limpopo businessman Lesiba Gwangwa is fully co-operating with SARS and is “in talks” with the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) in their investigation and prosecution of Malema.

Gwangwa, however, denied having turned witness for the state.

Malema, Gwangwa and three other business associates are standing trial in Polokwane on multiple charges ranging from money laundering, to racketeering, to fraud and corruption relating to the awarding of tenders by the Limpopo provincial government.

Malema is accused of using his political clout to win public contracts through a complex pyramid of companies. At the centre of the charges against him is an infrastructure contract worth R52 million.

M24i revealed in September last year that SARS had obtained a court order for Malema to pay R16m in taxes and penalties.

Malema has now accepted liability for his tax bill, but, through his lawyers, has informed SARS that it was never his intention to evade tax.

However, Malema has offered to pay SARS less than R4 million in an attempt to settle his tax debt, City Press understands.

Malema said this week that his privacy as a taxpayer should be respected, but confirmed that he and SARS were “almost at the tail-end of concluding those outstanding issues”.

He said his dealings with SARS were at a “very sensitive stage”, but that they “were finding each other.”

He was convinced that they were going to settle the matter.

Although SARS has yet to inform Malema of their response to his offer, M24i understands that it has not been favourably received.

If it is rejected, he can then attempt to reach a “tax compromise” with SARS, which will allow him to pay off his debt in instalments.

A tax compromise, however, will require a full disclosure by Malema of all his assets and liabilities, particulars of all his income, detail of all connected persons and any other information that SARS requires.

If Malema cannot settle his tax debt, he will be sequestrated.

Malema insisted he had disclosed all his income. “There is no cent that comes from drugs or the underworld. I am an open book. There is nothing that the state doesn’t know about me.”

Gwangwa himself was at the centre of a SARS investigation for alleged unpaid taxes worth millions.

Gwangwa initially approached the High Court last year to set aside the tax inquiry into 18 of his companies – some in which Malema had a stake through his family trust – but later withdrew the application.

Gwangwa insisted that he had not turned state witness.

“Why would I even want to do that? I don’t know anything of such nature,” he said. “I don’t think that anybody (from the NPA) would even come to me to do that. If they’ve got a job to do then they must continue doing it.”

Malema said he trusted Gwangwa as a “brother partner and fellow accused”.

“I received the money from Gwangwa which is suppose to be the money that confirms that I am receiving a bribe after performing a duty of influencing a tender,” he said.

“But let’s show how he (Malema) influenced the tender so that in return he is given the money. I have never influenced any tender. People look at me and how I walk and conclude that I am very influential’,” he said.

SARS spokesperson Adrian Lackey says the service could not by law comment on the affairs of any taxpayer.

A government agent photographed  weapons he claims alleged far right militants wanted to use to in a plot assassinate President Jacob Zuma and other top ANC leaders.

The far-right alleged conspirators, who were arrested by the police this week and who have been charged with terrorism and treason, also allegedlt boasted in cell phone text messages that they already had 54 assault rifles.

Media24 Investigations exclusively obtained the photographs and text messages from a source close to the investigation into the alleged right-wing plot.

The alleged plot, revealed this week, led to unprecedented security measures being taken at the ANC conference in Mangaung this week.

The four far righwingers, Mark Trollip, Johan Prinsloo, Hein Boonzaaier and Martin Keevy, who allegedly wanted to blow up the ANC conference with mortars, have appeared in a Bloemfontein court this week.

The state alleges that there had been a second plan to shoot Zuma, ministers and other high-ranking ANC members at close range.

Their application to be released on bail has been postponed to January 8.

Meanwhile, it appears that far-rightists had already planned in January already in January to launch a mortar assault on the ANC during its centenary celebration in the Bloemfontein stadium in Mangaung.

They, however, could not obtain the mortars and moved their planned attack to the ANC conference, which was held this week, the source claimed.

The right-wing plans were recently also discussed on rightwing websites after an internal dispute between the militants who accused each other of being government agents.

The investigation into the group’s activities has been conducted by a police task team, the State Security Agency (SSA) and army intelligence.

They used an agent who infiltrated the ranks of the right wing group.

Over a period of many months the investigators intercepted sms messages between which will now form the nucleus of the case against the four suspects.

One of the right wingers texted shortly before the start of the conference: “Jis, jy maak my jaloers, wat skiet julle als? (Gee, you are making me jealous, what are you shooting?)”

“LMG, AK, R4, Uzzi, Russian PMK… Daai pel het LMG (ligte masjiengeweer) ens, hy het 54 volle outomatiese gewere (LMG, AK, R4, Uzzi, Russian PKM… our friend has a LMG (light machine gun) etc, he has 54 fully automatic guns),” a right-winger sent back.

Media24 Investigations has also seen one of the reports which the agent sent to his handlers in the investigative task team.

He said that “bombs have been made as if it was nothing” and that the right-wingers were on the verge of obtaining 120mm mortars and 155mm ammunition.

Shortly before the Mangaung conference Johan Lubbe, who is also a well known right winger and arch enemy of Prinsloo, claimed on a right-wing website that Prinsloo and others had been planning “attacks on the imperial regime (the ANC)” in Bloemfontein.

Prinsloo is a funeral undertaker in Springs, while Boonzaaier is apparently an accountant in Centurion.

Prinsloo claims to be a former policeman attached to the vehicle theft unit.

The state prosecutor, Shaun Abrahams, said during the four suspects’ court appearance that there was substantial evidence that they had communicated with each other and planned the terror attacks in Bloemfontein.

The police did not respond to requests for comment.