Schabir Shaik

After the ANC was unbanned by the apartheid government in 1990, Shaik became an adviser to Thomas Nkobi, who at the time was ANC Treasurer-General.[4] In early 1995, the year after apartheid ended, Shaik founded Nkobi Holdings and Nkobi Investments, named after Thomas Nkobi, who had recently died.[3] Shaik had initially claimed that the Nkobi family trust held shares in Nkobi Holdings, justifying his use of Nkobi's name; the Nkobi family denied that they held such shares or that any such family trust existed.[7]

Shaik's companies were based in the new province of KwaZulu-Natal and ultimately encompassed broad interests in defence, information technology, and infrastructure.[4] Several sources told the Mail & Guardian that during the mid-1990s Shaik attempted to use his ANC affiliation to further his business interests.[4][5] Shaik later said that he and Nkobi had admired Malaysia's bumiputera economic policy and that the Malaysian policy had inspired him to offer the ANC shares in his companies, an offer rejected by the ANC in 1995.[8]

Under Mac Maharaj, who was Minister of Transport from 1994 to 1999, the Department of Transport granted a R264-million contract to Prodiba, a consortium of companies which included a stake for Thomson-CSF (now Thales) and a 33 per cent stake for an Nkobi Holdings subsidiary called KobiTech. The contract was to produce South African driving licenses in a new card format and it was cancelled in 2013,[9][10] although KobiTech was expelled from the consortium before then in 2007.[11] During Maharaj's tenure, another major contract – dealing with upgrades to the N3 highway – was granted to another consortium, the N3 Toll Road Consortium, of which Nkobi was a member.[11] The Scorpions investigated Maharaj for several years on suspicion that the transport contracts had been granted improperly.[11]

Shaik's relationship with Thomson-CSF extended beyond their partnership in the driving license consortium. Nkobi Investments owned shares in Thomson-CSF and in Thomson-CSF Holdings, a joint venture with Thomson incorporated inside South Africa.[12] He also had a significant stake in Altech Defence Systems (ADS, later renamed African Defence Systems), which Thomson-CSF acquired between April 1998 and February 1999.[12] In the latter half of the 1990s, Shaik held directorships at Thomson-CSF, Thomson-CSF Holdings, Nkobi Holdings, Nkobi Investments, and ADS.[12] Shaik thus acquired a substantial interest in the 1999 Arms Deal, a major defence procurement project of the South African government: both Thomson and ADS submitted bids for several defence contracts under the deal.[12] Ultimately, when the deal was finalised in 1999, both companies were awarded subcontracts for the four Valour-class frigates which were to be procured for the South African Navy – in the case of Thomson-CSF, the subcontract was to provide the combat suites for the frigates.[12][13]

Shaik was a personal friend of Jacob Zuma, an ANC stalwart who had known Shaik and his brothers during apartheid and who was appointed Deputy President of South Africa in 1999.[14][15] In 2002, a Zuma spokesman said that their friendship was rooted in their shared experiences in the ANC in the 1980s.[4] By that time, Shaik was also Zuma's personal financial adviser.[5][16]

In May 2002, Shaik appeared in court on charges that he illegally possessed classified minutes of President Thabo Mbeki's cabinet; the documents were seized in a Scorpions raid.[4][17]

He had a long-standing friendship with Jacob Zuma, who needed assistance with his finances after returning from political exile in Mozambique in 1990. Zuma had been elected Chairperson of the African National Congress, and Shaik assisted him financially, mostly in the form of interest-free loans with no date of repayment.

Nkobi Holdings was initially wholly owned by Shaik. The shareholding went through various permutations subsequently, however Shaik was at all relevant times a director of, and exercised effective control over, all the corporate entities within the Nkobi group.

His brother, Chippy Shaik, was in charge of arms acquisition at the Department of Defence, which allowed Shaik to bid on a lucrative contract to supply Valour class patrol corvettes to the South African Navy.