The first the world heard of Chancellor House, and its links to the ruling ANC, were in this piece published in the Mail & Guardian in November last year.

Despite the raw accusations in the article, the lack of response was notable.

These are excerpts

“The Johannesburg-based Chancellor House group of companies has acquired “empowerment” stakes in a wide range of businesses (see “Other Chancellor House investments“).

More often than not, these opportunities have depended on the government’s discretion — the award of state tenders, mineral rights and the like. This means the ANC, as ruling party, has been both player and referee.

As in the Oilgate scandal, where ANC-linked Imvume Management diverted state funds to party coffers before the 2004 elections, the activities of Chancellor House raise the spectre of government actions being shaped by party interests rather than the public interest.

Chancellor House has focused strongly on the minerals and energy sector, where empowerment opportunities have mushroomed since 2004, when new mining legislation came into effect.

Our main case study (see “The oligarch, the ANC and the manganese deal“) reveals how the government awarded rights to strategically important manganese reserves to a consortium that included both Chancellor House and a Russian oligarch, Viktor Vekselberg.

The evidence that Chancellor House was set up as a business front for the ruling party, answerable to its treasurer general, Mendi Msimang, is compelling.

Chancellor House is named after a now-decrepit building in downtown Johannesburg — in the 1950s it housed “Mandela and Tambo”, the law firm of the two ANC presidents-to-be.

According to one well-placed official, who wants to remain anonymous, Msimang approached representatives of the department of minerals and energy as early as 2002 seeking opportunities for Chancellor House, which was formally constituted in March 2003.

By 2004, said the official, Chancellor House “kept trying to get deals [from the department]. It said the money was for the ANC.”

The official added: “You can speak to any senior ANC leader. There is no question, Chancellor is regarded as an ANC company … It is officially supposed to be an entity for ANC funding.”

Another businessman, who was involved in a deal indirectly related to one of the transactions described on these pages, said: “I think it is common cause that Chancellor is the ANC’s — that it owns it. I have heard that Mendi [Msimang] chairs it.” Msimang does not chair Chancellor House, but this comment is consistent with separate accounts that the group answers to him.