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heads the Youth League of the ruling African National Congress.
“We are obtaining the crucial information we would need. It is about allegations of corruption around the trust fund,” McIntosh Polela, spokesman for an elite police unit known as the Hawks, told Reuters, confirming local newspaper reports.
He said they were collecting information to see if further investigation was required but declined to say what avenues they were pursuing. The Sunday Times newspaper reported the police had approached banks and cellphone companies for Malema records. Investors in South Africa keep close tabs on Malema, whose racially charged, populist appeals to the poor black majority have raised concerns about whether the ANC will take up his calls to overhaul Africa’s largest economy.
Corruption is a major investor concern in South Africa. A police raid last week on the mines department and a firm linked to President Jacob Zuma’s son has highlighted the use of political connections to amass wealth.
As ANC Youth League leader, Malema, 30, has no direct policymaking power. But the League, co-founded by Nelson Mandela, has long been a training ground for the leadership, and he is an influential power broker.
Several newspapers carried separate stories on Sunday detailing new allegations about the lavish lifestyle of Malema, who has called for mines to be nationalised and white-owned farms to be seized.
The City Press newspaper, which last week alleged that the secret trust fund financed Malema’s lifestyle, said he had paid 2 million rand (US$298 000) towards a house in the plush Johannesburg suburb of Sandton. The paper quoted the previous owner of the house, who said Malema had used a combination of cash deposits and a bank loan to pay the 3.6 million rand owed in total. Malema has said that the house is fully mortgaged.
The Sunday Times, citing deed and other searches, also said he had made a 2 million rand cash payment on the house – now demolished in preparation for the building of what local media has said will be a mansion costing up to 16 million rand.
And the Sunday Independent newspaper reported that a mansion was being built for Malema’s grandmother.
Malema has said the fund is a trust for charities. “This trust they are talking about is a trust that continues to help the poorest of the poor. “That trust has built chur- ches . . . houses for the poor,” Malema was quoted in the Sunday Times as telling a gathe- ring on Thursday. – Reu- ters.
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