The man who (almost) toppled a president

Arthur Fraser likes to keep out of the public eye. Usually, you only hear of him when he’s surfaced to drop another political bombshell.

Over a decade ago, he paved Jacob Zuma’s road to the presidency by leaking classified intelligence tape recordings. More recently, he was the architect of Cyril Ramaphosa’s political near-demise, when he charged that the president had tried to cover up the theft of a large amount of dollars from his game farm, Phala Phala.

Events have yet to play themselves out fully, yet Fraser’s bombs this time had Ramaphosa on the verge of resignation two weeks ago. What gave the whole ordeal extra sting is that in June Fraser laid criminal charges against Ramaphosa and released an embellished account of events anchored in truth. Cue probes by the criminal authorities and the public protector. 

Yet there remains many unanswered questions about Fraser’s role in this all.

First, the theft of the dollars — Fraser said it’s millions, Ramaphosa puts it at $580,000 — from a sofa, took place in February 2020 but Fraser only released this information in June this year. This also happened just weeks before chief justice Raymond Zondo released his state capture report, which implicated Fraser in serious wrongdoing during his tenure at the State Security Agency (SSA).

Still, Fraser’s move sparked a flurry of activity. The African Transformation Movement tried to set in motion impeachment procedures, but the report produced by an independent panel led by retired chief justice Sandile Ngcobo was shot down when the ANC caucus rallied around Ramaphosa.

Despite serious gaps in the report, its appearance is  devastating for Ramaphosa, who has built his presidency on fighting graft.

What is intriguing, however, is the extent to which Fraser has melted back into the shadows since. He hasn’t spoken on public platforms or made himself available for media comments.

Only recently did he re-emerge with a legal challenge to the allegations made against him in Zondo’s report, days before the start of the ANC’s elective conference in Nasrec.

The fact that Fraser was even appointed to head the SSA by Ramaphosa’s predecessor, Zuma, in 2016 was already a surprise, since there were already damning findings of serious abuse against him at the agency.

Zondo’s report said Fraser had been a “law unto himself” at the agency, and his tenure was characterised by a lack of accountability. The report found that Fraser was at the centre of the SSA’s capture, which was turned into Zuma’s personal outfit and used to fight factional battles within the ANC.

This included allegedly interfering with Ramaphosa’s 2017 presidential campaign, and Zondo noted how millions of rand left the SSA headquarters shortly before the ANC’s elective conference in Nasrec that year.

Fraser had also been accused of setting up, together with SSA special operations head Thulani Dlomo, a parallel intelligence structure in the shape of the Principal Agency Network, which used R600m of state funds to create a shadow operation within the State Security Agency to serve the interests of Zuma and his friends.

Zondo also heard testimony on how R9bn of SSA assets were missing or lost in the 2017/2018 financial year, when Fraser was director-general.

But Fraser, in his court papers, argues that Zondo, as well as the commission’s evidence leader, advocate Paul Pretorius, wanted to silence him and wouldn’t “hear me, as I would have exposed the real puppet masters behind the commission”.

Though he supported the establishment of the state capture inquiry in 2018, he said it had breached fundamental ethics and principles. “[I’d] always been concerned about the state of our country and events that would result in democratic reversals and a complete destruction of our country and its institutions,” he said.

His critics, however, will argue that if he feels that way, he sure has found a way to act in direct contradiction of these values.

Aside from Phala Phala, however, Fraser’s other dubious decision was to release Zuma on “medical parole” last year after the former president served just two months of his 15-month sentence for contempt of court. Fraser, at that point, was commissioner for correctional services, a post to which Ramaphosa had, mystifyingly, appointed him.

The courts have now found that parole decision to be “unlawful”. 

Those who knew the history wouldn’t have been surprised. Fraser met Zuma while in exile, and on his return after 1994, Fraser joined the newly formed National Intelligence Agency.

Initially he was close to former president Thabo Mbeki; his sister, Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi, served in Mbeki’s cabinet. But by 2009, Fraser was firmly in Zuma’s camp.

Fraser retired from his job as prisons boss last year, at the age of 57. But don’t be fooled into thinking that “retirement” means he’s stepping back from political life. Expect plenty more grenades from the man who almost forced SA’s president to quit.