WATCH | Zizi Kodwa appears in court on bribery allegations
Former minister of sports, arts and culture Zizi Kodwa together with his co-accused, former EOH boss Jehan Mackay, are appearing at the Palm Ridge Magistrates Court on Wednesday.
Kodwa is implicated in the State Capture Commission for receiving almost R1,7m from tainted businessman and former executive of EOH Group Jehan Mackay between February 2014 and April 2015 when Kodwa was still the spokesperson for the ANC.
According to the commission, EOH Group, an IT solutions firm, and its entities including Mackay paid Kodwa R1,68m and another R30,000 for his personal benefit. At the time, EOH Group had several tenders with the City of Johannesburg and according to the commission, the payments could have been for Kodwa to influence more tenders in EOH's favour.
The commission also alleged that Mackay regularly met with Kodwa to discuss further donations to be made by the company to the ANC including inquiring about the costs of the printing of the party's 2,500 t-shirts.
"Included within this aggregate amount was an amount of R1m which, according to Mr Kodwa, was loaned to him by Mr Jehan Mackay tor the purposes of purchasing the Jeep motor vehicle that he purchased on 6 June 2015," read the commission's report.
The commission further said Mackay and EOH Group-related companies paid hundreds of thousands of rands for luxury rental accommodation for Kodwa.
Kodwa however, testified that he was unaware the accommodation was a rental as he believed the properties belonged to Mackay. He also conceded to receiving money from Mackay's companies claiming that he was broke at the time.
"On his own version, Mr Kodwa has never been in a position to repay Jehan Mackay the amounts of the loans advanced to him and has not repaid any of these amounts. He insists that they were not payment made as a quid pro quo for any assistance on his part. In particular he denies that the payments an the luxury accommodation were in any way related to the procurement of government contracts by EOH or related companies," read the report.
The report further said Mackay continued to engage Kodwa in relation to pending several EOH Group tenders with the state.
In one of their conversation via email, Mackay asked Kodwa to intervene in a Department of Home Affairs tender in July 2015 after the company's bid was disqualified. Mackay asked Kodwa to talk to people involved of the adjudication process on his behalf.
"Whatever the subjective intentions of Mr Kodwa, it's clear that Jehan Mackay was attempting to buy influence by making the loans that he made to Kodwa and by providing Kodwa with luxury accommodation," said the commission
It further said Mackay's apparent attempts to induce Kodwa to interfere with procurement process appeared to be corrupt.
The commission stated that it had not seen seen impropriety evidence against Kodwa or what he may have done for EOH Group because it did not have efficient time to investigate allegations against him. It however, also pointed out that it was possible for someone of Kodwa's stature who also comes from a majority party to influence other government officials in procurement of tenders.
The commission recommended multi-criminal investigations into Mackay's conduct and other individuals who might have worked with him. It also recommended the president to consider Kodwa's position in government as he seemed to be "beholden to Mr Jehan Mackay". Kodwa was the deputy minister of State Security when the report was released in 2022.