THE startling news came when Thomas Thabane was barely weeks into his second stint as Lesotho‘s prime minister. Thabane appointed Yan ‘John’ Xie, a controversial Chinese businessman, as his Special Envoy and Trade Adviser on China-Asia Trade Network in August 2017. What that elaborately titled job entailed was vague.
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Neither Thabane nor his lieutenants bothered to explain John’s role even amidst the public outrage.
That Thabane had gone out of his way to create a special position for John was equally puzzling.
“Why specifically John”, quipped one opposition official at that time.
What was clear, though, was that John was now officially in the echelons of power.
Thabane had now officialised the outsized but opaque influence John had wielded in Lesotho’s successive governments for decades.
It had been known that John was a mover and shaker who operated in the shadows, pulling strings to land lucrative government contracts for himself and his fronts. Judging by his success he probably didn’t need an official position to get politicians and government officials to bend to his will.
Yet Thabane had risked the public’s wrath by making the bold decision to appoint John to a position some saw as almost equivalent to a senior minister or even higher.
The howls of protest were as instant as they were furious, with allegations of state capture bandied around by both the opposition and some in the ruling All Basotho Convention (ABC).
John would later downplay his position’s clout by claiming he didn’t have an official office and wasn’t taking a salary.
But what he earned and from where he worked were not issues informing the public’s fury at his hiring. What mattered was the influence of the position combined with his notoriety as a businessman who always had some senior government officials in his pocket.
The logic: If John controlled government officials and politicians from his office at Jackpot Supermarket, imagine what he could do when he is officially in the prime minister’s office.
Those who knew of John’s operations understood what that meant for the business empire built through questionable relations with different governments and their leaders.
One minister at that time confided in a friend that he and some in the cabinet knew that “as special adviser John was now officially residing in Thabane’s ear and he would milk that privilege”.
Yet the appointment was not surprising to those who had known John’s sly ways as a shrewd operator who cultivated deep and lasting connections within governments through strategic generosity, political donations and inducements.
As far as they could see, his appointment was a culmination of influence craftily amassed over decades.
Nearly all political parties or political leaders who mattered in Lesotho’s politics had received some donation from John.
For instance, he helped fund the wedding of Prime Minister Pakalitha Mosisili’s daughter.
He sourced 50 000 T-shirts for the Alliance of Democrats (AD)’s 2017 election campaign. Thabane was still staying at John’s Hillsview mansion when he appointed him.
He also received cash donations from John while in exile in South Africa. Thabane later described the assistance as “money to buy soap”.
There were allegations that John funded Thabane’s opulent wedding in the same month he was appointed. John later told a journalist that his gift to Thabane and his bride was between M20 000 and M30 000.
Among the government functionaries, John methodically charmed principal secretaries, directors, procurement officers and others who matter in the tender process. Some would get groceries from Jackpot Supermarket on credit.
Some Ministers and MPs had near-permanent grocery accounts at the shop.
Sometimes politicians would get groceries to use for their campaigns.
He would help with funerals, weddings and medical expenses.
John’s appointment receded from the headlines and radio shows, replaced by bigger crises that shook the government and soured the public’s mood towards Thabane’s rule.
However, what critics seemed to have missed during that public ire was what John’s appointment meant for Chinese-owned companies vying for tenders in Lesotho. Many had always relied on John to help them land tenders as either a partner or a fixer. Now, their man was in the prime minister’s office with access to the government’s plans for infrastructural projects.
“John was not just an adviser but had so much influence in the Thabane government that you could say he was directing things,” said a former minister.
“You could say he was telling Thabane which project to prioritise.”
“I could say by the time those projects went to tender, John had access to critical information giving him or his business associates a huge advantage on the tender.”
Take for instance, the M379 million Mpilo Boulevard tender that John is said to have rigged to benefit a Chinese-led joint venture in exchange for a M50 million cut.
The contract was cancelled earlier this year on allegations of fraud and misrepresentation by the Chinese partners in the joint venture.
John started engineering the deal when he was still special adviser to Thabane.
He was also involved in the contract to supply park homes to the Ministry of Home Affairs. His involvement had remained hidden until he was exposed when the fallout with his local partners over payment triggered a nasty court battle.
John is said to have influenced the Thabane government to launch the controversial and ruinous regulations that forced farmers to sell their wool and mohair to a company owned by Stone Shi, a businessman.
There are also dozens of other projects in which John was involved when he was part of the Thabane government.
There are several others that he was involved with after leaving the government but he could have used his position to gather critical information that could give him and his associates an unfair advantage.
“John has played a critical role in helping the Chinese companies get a foothold in Lesotho’s construction sector. He works as a fixer or partner, either way, he makes his money. A lot of money,” said a former minister who claimed to have worked closely with John during the Thabane government.
“He paved the way for those companies. He was their ‘man in Lesotho’”.
John’s role as a partner or fixer in Lesotho is coming into the spotlight as the Chinese-owned companies muscle local companies out of the construction sector and other tenders.
Local companies that agree to be sub-contractors find themselves at the mercy of their Chinese partners that either underpay or refuse to pay.
For the past three months, thepost has been investigating John’s influence and the operations of Chinese-owned companies in Lesotho.
thepost has also been investigating John’s influence and relationship with several Chinese-owned companies in Lesotho.
The investigation revealed his systematic grip on power to eventually emasculate local players in different sectors for the benefit of Chinese-owned companies linked to him. For the next few weeks, thepost will run a series of stories demonstrating how John and a clique of Chinese businesspeople have been craftily benefiting from government business at the expense of local players.
Staff Reporter
