Self-confessed felon Angelo Agrizzi’s appearance at the
Zondo Commission in January appears to have been the final piece in a carefully co-ordinated plan more than a decade in the making.
Agrizzi kept a national television audience spellbound as he confessed to paying out R6m in cash as bribes to previously powerful politicians including
the former president and members of his cabinet,
some senior law enforcement officials and numerous
influential personalities.
The former chief operating officer of the
since bankrupted Bosasa painted himself as the unfortunate victim of the company’s founder and apparent criminal mastermind,
the late Gavin Watson.
Agrizzi said his decision to turn whistleblower came after reflection following a near death experience.
But documentary evidence painstakingly compiled over months by Watson and his nephew, chartered accountant Jared, confirms that there is a lot more to a story swallowed by most in the South African media, and as a result, the public at large.
The evidence, presented as a timeline going back to 2006, was due to be presented to a SARS Tax Commission of Inquiry two days after Watson’s mysterious death. It is published on Biznews today in the public interest and is accessible by
clicking here.
The evidence shows Agrizzi repeatedly perjured himself at the Zondo Commission and raises big question about his motives and the timing of his “diclosures”, coming as they did just three months
before a crucial General Election.
Agrizzi and his son Giancarlo are shown in the documentation to have enjoyed close ties to the official opposition political party, the Democratic Alliance, which stood to benefit most by his disclosures about apparent malfeasance within the ruling African National Congress.
The Bosasa Files also illustrate that Agrizzi’s decision to turn whistleblower happened after he failed to pry the Department of Correctional Services contracts away from his former employers. His approach to the law authorities also came a month after his final attempt to acquire Bosasa failed – and more than 18 months after his purported near death experience in December 2016.
The documents highlight numerous inconsistencies in the Agrizzi story – ranging from his insistence in paying “influencers” in cash but having no problem in depositing R276,000 through an easily traceable ETF from a Bosasa bank account.
But most of all the Bosasa Files support founder Gavin Watson’s claim that he trusted his management team and Agrizzi in particular with running the business – abdicating authority to them in all operational matters.
This reflects a very different picture to Agrizzi’s testimony to Zondo Commission in which he paints himself as an obedient pawn in the hands of an evil mastermind.
The documents also show Agrizzi had relationships with influential members of the media, including a friendly email from the editor in chief of News24, Adriaan Basson, asking him to check a draft of one of many “expose’s” he has written about Bosasa for some years.
Asked about the Watson claim that he has a close relationship with Agrizzi, Basson called the allegations “total bullshit” adding that the Watsons “are not interested in facts which makes me suspicious about anything they say. Agrizzi tried to impress Gavin’s kids by telling them that I visited him with my kids. I went to his house once for an interview without my kids.”
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