Exposed: Zuma ‘bodyguard' was link man in international fishing conspiracy

Noseweek’s Susan Puren dives deep into the WikiLeaks Fishrot Files

- Susan Puren

IN MAY 2014 JACOB ZUMA APPOINTED Senzeni Zokwana as Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fish-eries. But by July 2016 Zokwana and his department were faced with a court application to interdict them from fishing an exploratory permit worth between R80 million and R120m per year, renewable for up to 15 years. Until now nobody connected the dots, except maybe the man who later became the whistleblower in Namibia’s Fishrot scandal.

The fishing industry is a murky business, a commonly connected mob that is littered with rogue operators, professional conmen and full-blown crooks. But to categorise them strictly along those lines or pick out the honest ones among them is a difficult exercise that depends on who you speak to or how you interpret the confidential emails that WikiLeaks splashed across the internet on Tuesday 12 November last year.

Much has since been written about the WikiLeaks Fishrot Files that exposed corrupt politicians and officials in Namibia’s fishing industry. In return for lucrative fishing rights in their country they received close to $10m (R147m) in bribes from the Icelandic fishing conglomerate Samherji.

Two government ministers in Namibia resigned and are awaiting trial, together with another seven senior officials who were also caught with their hands in the cookie jar. In Iceland, Samherji’s CEO has stepped down while the whistleblower, Icelandic citizen Jóhannes Stefánsson, is in hiding, fearing for his life.