Claims that apartheid era state security agents have infiltrated South Africa’s troubled state-owned enterprises (SOEs) should be taken seriously and investigated, former president Thabo Mbeki has said.
Mbeki said this following disclosures from former State Security Agency head Arthur Fraser who told a probe that this development of his former agents infiltrating the SOEs may also explain why the firms have been performing poorly.
In an interview with SABC TV on Wednesday, the former president said he found it strange that crucial state institutions like power supplier Eskom and the South African Revenue Services, the tax collector, were apparently driven to the brink of collapse.
Mbeki told the SABC: “Former Director General of the State Security Agency Arthur Fraser says part of the problem we have is that the (ruling party) ANC and other structures like this, and also government structures, after 1994 were infiltrated by agents of the apartheid regime who, he says, still remain in senior positions to this day.”
He added: “The Nugent Commission on SARS, also makes the same statement. We must have a look at that, what lies at the base of this crisis in order to be able to find a correct solution.”
There has been no reaction from government on Mbeki’s unsolicited advice — but Eskom and SARS in the past have been infiltrated by corruption led by the Gupta Brothers using bogus firms to siphon off millions of dollars from these two state-owned enterprises.
The three India-born Guptas fled the country when they sensed the noose was tightening around them, and took up sanctuary in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates – enjoying their ill-gotten wealth from South Africa.
NM/jn/APA