CoGTA asked to probe Thabang Mathebula

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CoGTA asked to probe Thabang Mathebula
INVOICE CLERK: A damning forensic report into maladministration at the Emalahleni Local Municipality has detailed how former MMC for environmental affairs, Thabang Mathebula - who is now Nkangala district MMC for Planning and Economic Developement - regularly carried around invoices of service providers, bidding for them to be signed-off so payments can be processed, even on Christmas Eve. PICTURE BY 013NEWS

The investigation report also calls for the municipality to launch a lifestyle audit and compare the lavish lifestyle of officials with their salaries.


A forensic investigation conducted on the eMalahleni municipality has recommended that the co-operative governance department (Cogta) should probe former Emalahleni MMC Thabang Mathebula after it found that he is deep in the pockets of dodgy tenderpreneurs.

The report has also recommended criminal charges be laid against former mayor Lindiwe Ntshalintshali, former municipal manager Theo van Vuuren, CFO Jabulile Hlatshwayo and deceased corporate service director Mandla Vilane for issues of unlawful travel allowances and salary increments.

The report is yet to be tabled before council and is the work of co-operative governance MEC Busi Shiba.

It shows that a company owned by dodgy Siyabuswa tenderpreneur Strike Chili made use of Mathebula’s influence in council to get municipal officials to sign Chili’s suspicious invoices.

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Chili’s company is called Krieck Business Enterprise or KBE and was awarded a R4.4 million tender in January 2017 for water and sewage system services.

Despite doing shoddy work, delivering only 3 of the 6 boreholes it was hired to construct, all of KBE’s invoices were paid exactly on time but at grossly inflated prices.

CoGTA asked to probe Thabang Mathebula
Businessman Strike Chili who owns KBE. PIC Facebook

Investigators say one of Chili’s invoices was signed inside the ANC’s elective conference in Nasrec on 17 December 2017, just a day before conference elected its 54th leadership.

“Manager for the municipal waste management department, Mr Agrippa Masuku, during an interview with investigators said while he was attending the ANC conference, he was approached by Councillor Thabang Mathebula, who is currently the Member of the Mayoral Committee for Environmental and Waste Management and who requested that Mr Masuku sign off on KBE’s invoice for payment,” the forensic report reads.

It says Masuku felt Mathebula’s actions were suspicious as “he was not entitled to such a request”.

“I felt that his request amounted to interference by a politician to [the] administration,” Masuku told the section 106 investigators.

CoGTA asked to probe Thabang Mathebula
Former Emalahleni MMC for Environment and Waste Thabang Mathebula who must be probed by Cogta for his unbecoming conduct. PIC 013NEWS

The investigators say it’s interesting that Mathebula was seen carrying invoices of KBE and “calling people to come and sign such invoices for payment to KBE”.

Masuku said he received another call just few days before Christmas from Mathebula, again asking him to come sign Chili’s invoice despite those invoices not being accompanied by proof that Chili had really finished the work he was appointed to do.

“I refused to sign and on 24 December 2017 the invoices were signed by Mr. Botha Kleynhans,” Masuku told the investigators.

The report also found that KBE in fact didn’t follow the proper processes when it was awarded the tender in the first place.

Finally, KBE abandoned the work – only installing 3 boreholes, having been paid R4.4 million, as the project “was fraught with delays and non-performance issues”.

The KBE contract was finally terminated in June 2020 after it ran for over 3 years, delivering nothing on the site it was given.

The company claimed that most of the work it did was vandalised and stolen but investigators did not find any police case number supporting this.

The report reads: “We recommend that COGTA management should consider investigating the alleged unlawful conduct of Councillor Thabang Mathebula”.

Mathebula was appointed MMC for Planning and Economic Development at the Nkangala District Municipality following the 1 November Local Government Elections.

(edited by MLM)
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