Mail and Guardian Journalist Lucky Sindane has been working on a corruption story surrounding the 2010 World Cup Mbombela Stadium in Nelspruit. In appreciation for his investigative work, those involved in the Bidding and Tender Corruption scheme have put together an Assassination Hit List, which allegedly includes Lucky's name, plus an odd twenty others too, among them four other journalists.
Adding insult to injury the brave whistleblower who singlehandedly confronted the ANC and refused to budge on the matter, was shortly thereafter assassinated. He was Jimmy Mohlala, the then speaker of the Nelspruit Municipality. Mohlahla had exposed the Mbombela Municipal Manager, Jacob Dladla with tender corruption. In appreciation for exposing corrupton, his ANC colleagues demanded whistleblower Mohlahla's resignation. He refused, and ended up dead.
Jacob Dladla was eventually investigated, for among others appointing a man named Differ Mogale, as the council's 2010 local coordinator, at approximately R480 000 per year, without authorisation; as well as irregular payments to Lefika Emerging Equity of R43 million.
Last week Sammy Patlatyana, the Provincial Arts and Culture Dept's Communication Officer, who had also been on the hit list, was assassinated. According to those who follow the money, all roads and reports lead to Lefika Emerging Equity, which has also been threatening anyone who reports that conclusion. One of Lefika's Board of Directors, Chris Grib has already skipped the country, related to a fraudulently obtained VAT certificate. Another director is Bobby Motaung, who is also the general manager of Kaizer Chiefs and the son of Kaizer Motaung, the founder of Kaizer Chiefs.
Meanwhile ANC's deputy chairperson in Ehlanzeni region in Mpumalanga, Peter Nyoni, has been the ANC's enforcer, in its coercion attempts to reinstate Dladla. Allegedly councillors were informed by a memo that they would be "fired within a short space of time" if they resisted ANC instructions.
No wonder the Guardian reports:The decline in political standards has happened all over South Africa and, in the past year, ANC branch meetings in many parts of the country have been the scenes of killings or violent disruption. ANC national secretary-general Gwede Mantashe told cadres last year: "You are victims of comrades who want to split the organisation on the basis of wanting to access resources and dispense patronage - comrades who say, 'If you vote for me, I'll give you this tender or appoint you to this department'."
Unsurprisingly, commentators are beginning to suggest that the World Cup is merely a cash cow for an increasingly corrupt elite.
"The ANC manifesto is claiming the tournament as one of its achievements in government. But we must ask whether we need the World Cup," says Andile Mngxitama, a columnist for the Sowetan
He said that the deployment of 30,000 special police and the government's proposed use of spy technology to limit the crime in June 2010 are evidence that the competition is not intended to benefit South Africans. "The tournament is going to turn our country into a big fun park, with visitors enjoying a level of comfort and safety and security that ordinary people can only dream of. When the tournament is over, we will be sitting with major world-class stadiums in a country that can't feed or educate its people. The truth is we don't need the World Cup. Politicians and their connections need it."
Hit list in Nelspruit?
Sudney Masinga, Mail & Guardian
Jan 15 2010 14:37
 Samuel "Sammy" Mpatlanyane (45) was shot dead by unknown gunmen in his house in Stonehenge, Nelspruit, on January 8. The murder eerily echoes that of speaker Jimmy Mohlala, who was shot and killed in front of his son outside his house in KaNyamazane on January 4 last year. |
Mpumalanga's sports and culture minister, Vusi Shongwe, said this week that his department's head of communication and spokesperson was killed by the same "scavengers" who assassinated the Mbombela (Nelspruit council) speaker last year.
Samuel "Sammy" Mpatlanyane (45) was shot dead by unknown gunmen in his house in Stonehenge, Nelspruit, on January 8.
The murder eerily echoes that of speaker Jimmy Mohlala, who was shot and killed in front of his son outside his house in KaNyamazane on January 4 last year.
Mohlala had been due to testify in the disciplinary hearing of former municipal manager Jacob Dladla, accused of financial mismanagement of the Mbombela World Cup Stadium project. Dladla has since resigned.
Rumours are rife of a "hit list" that also features two journalists, including Mail & Guardian sports writer Lucky Sindane, who covered the Mohlala killing. The M&G is exploring ways of ensuring his safety.
Speaking after a memorial service for Mpatlanyane in Nelspruit on Tuesday, an emotional Shongwe said: "These scavengers who killed Sammy are the same people who robbed Jimmy of the opportunity to see the World Cup on our shores.
"We need to expose these people before they make this province mourn again."
Mbombela mayor Lassy Chiwayo, also rumoured to be on the "hit list", echoed Shongwe's sentiments.
"Jimmy and Sammy … were slaughtered like beasts. How long will the perpetrators do this, and why do we keep quiet and accept it when we can do something about it?" Chiwayo asked.
The police have confirmed that Mpatlanyane was shot in his bed, but that his body was found on the balcony leading from his bedroom on the second storey of the house. There was no sign of forced entry.
"Mpatlanyane was found dead with one bullet wound to his chest and another through his ribcage. The headboard of the bed on which he had been sleeping was riddled with bullets," said Mpumalanga police spokesperson Captain Leonard Hlathi.
He also said that Mpatlanyane was killed with a gun stolen from a policeman's house in Nelsville in late December.
On Wednesday this week, investigating officer Inspector Sonnyboy Moloko refused to comment on the investigation. Despite a R100 000 reward for information leading to the capture and conviction of the killers, no one has been arrested.
The case was officially taken over by the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigations, the Hawks, last week.
Hawks spokesperson Musa Zondi said claims that high-profile figures might be involved in Mohlala's murder would not be investigated without concrete evidence.
"There is no concrete evidence against anyone in this case, and as a result it is more difficult to make headway," Zondi said. -- African Eye News Service.
» » » » [Mail & Guardian (PDF)]
Sleaze and anger as Africa heads for first World Cup In fewer than 500 days
Football's greatest prize comes to the continent at a cost of £800m. Little of that investment will benefit workers on breadline wages or communities being evicted from their homes. Now allegations of corruption and even murder loom over next year's contest
Alex Duval Smith in Nelspruit The Observer,
Sunday 1 February 2009
 Mbombela, Nelspruit, Mpumalanga: The stadium is expected to cost about R600 million. Mr Makwetla, Mpumalanga's premier: “National government has made an undertaking to provide the financial resources pertaining to the 2010 world cup infrastructure requirements.” [Cup 2010] Construction Costs: Construction cost R1.05 bill. [Wiki] |
Stephen Maseko's mudbrick house in Mbombela has no electricity or running water, but it does have a room with a view. In the distance, a multicoloured structure sits perched in the tropical greenery like a giant trampoline. Without a trace of affection, Maseko calls it the "playground".
"With all these construction workers around, I cannot safely let my daughters walk to school. I have lived in the area for 19 years, but this is the worst of times. When the building work ends, there will be power and computers at the stadium, and modern toilets with separate cubicles for men and women. But we who live here will still have nothing, only thousands of unemployed men."
The concerns of residents and site workers are only a tiny element of all that has gone wrong at Mbombela Stadium. Here as elsewhere, lavish World Cup spending has thrown up no discernible benefits for the millions still waiting for homes, electricity, water and a reliable education and health service. But the building of Nelspruit's World Cup showpiece has also led to a tragedy which says much about the flaws and resentments in society, 14 years after the end of apartheid.
 Soccer Against the Enemy: How the World's Most Popular Sport Starts and Fuels Revolutions and Keeps Dictators in Power; by Simon Kuper |
Jimmy Mohlala, 44, was the speaker of Mbombela council. A former teacher, he joined the ANC when he was a teenager and became a politician when the post-apartheid municipalities were created in the mid-1990s. He was gunned down by masked men at his home at Kanyamazane, 40 kilometres from the stadium. His 19-year-old son, Tshepiso, got a bullet in his right leg but survived the attack on 4 January . "It was not a normal crime," said a member of the family, who are convinced that, but for the World Cup coming to their town, Mohlala would still be alive.
He had made increasingly powerful enemies ever since December 2006 when he blew the whistle on a 1.4m rand (£900,000) turf-cutting party at the Mbombela Stadium site. His determination to reveal alleged tender irregularities led to the suspension of several top ANC officials in Mbombela, including municipal manager Jacob Dladla.
Central to the claims was a deal under which provincial and municipal officials allegedly conspired to defraud the local Matsafeni community of the land on which the stadium is being built. The Matsafeni had been forcibly removed from their ancestral land under apartheid. It was won back in 2003, but lost again in a forced sale to the Mbombela municipality in 2007. The World Cup took priority over the Matsafeni. The community has taken legal action and at an interdict hearing in June last year, high court judge Ntendeya Mavundla warned the ANC-dominated council that its treatment of the Matsafeni was little different from those of "colonialists who usurped land from naive Africans in return for shiny buttons and mirrors".
Last February, the ANC demanded that Mohlala resign, after he named several officials - all of them ruling party politicians - for having allegedly corrupted the stadium construction tendering process. At the same time, the party made moves to reinstate politicians, such as Dladla, who had been named in connection with the tender scandal. After the council was in effect put into receivership, an independent audit called for legal action against Dladla as well as stadium project management company Lefika Emerging Equity and the main stadium contractor, Basil Read.
Despite repeated pressure from the ANC, Mohlala refused to step down. At the time of his death, he was the target of party disciplinary action. "We had never seen anyone disobey ANC party orders like that," said a colleague on the council.
Former Mbombane municipal whip Ngilishi Sambo, who himself survived an armed attack last September, said Mohlala's dedication to serving the community probably cost him his life: "We all receive death threats, and after a while you stop taking them seriously. There had been a campaign to ruin his reputation - a rape case and an assault case. In court, he survived them all. He was an exceptionally dedicated local politician but was outnumbered on the council which, as a result, effectively has not done any useful work for the community for three years."
The glamour of the World Cup put a national spotlight on Mohlala's murder. But critics of the government claim that the circumstances leading to his death are all too common in a country that has lost its way. South Africa's newest political party, the Congress of the People (Cope), claims that corruption and lack of service delivery are the principal issues prompting ANC politicians and ordinary party members to defect before the general election expected at the end of April. "Jimmy Mohlala was very outspoken," said Sizile Ndlovu, Cope's provincial chairman. "In Nelson Mandela's time, the ANC was run on the basis of morals. We were there to serve the people. The organisation has been taken over by the worst thugs.
"Our electoral system means that the party appoints provincial and municipality politicians from a list. They are not chosen by the people. When there is money around, some ANC comrades become jealous of others and some team up with each other for personal gain. The system is completely rotten," added Ndlovu, a former ANC councillor and anti-corruption crusader whose house was sprayed with 19 machine gun bullets in 2006.
 Foul! Secret World of FIFA: Bribes, Vote-rigging & Ticket Scandals; by Andrew Jennings |
The decline in political standards has happened all over South Africa and, in the past year, ANC branch meetings in many parts of the country have been the scenes of killings or violent disruption. ANC national secretary-general Gwede Mantashe told cadres last year: "You are victims of comrades who want to split the organisation on the basis of wanting to access resources and dispense patronage - comrades who say, 'If you vote for me, I'll give you this tender or appoint you to this department'."
Unsurprisingly, commentators are beginning to suggest that the World Cup is merely a cash cow for an increasingly corrupt elite.
"The ANC manifesto is claiming the tournament as one of its achievements in government. But we must ask whether we need the World Cup," says Andile Mngxitama, a columnist for the Sowetan
He said that the deployment of 30,000 special police and the government's proposed use of spy technology to limit the crime in June 2010 are evidence that the competition is not intended to benefit South Africans. "The tournament is going to turn our country into a big fun park, with visitors enjoying a level of comfort and safety and security that ordinary people can only dream of. When the tournament is over, we will be sitting with major world-class stadiums in a country that can't feed or educate its people. The truth is we don't need the World Cup. Politicians and their connections need it."
But whatever the measurable success of the 2010 World Cup, Steven Maseko's world will remain draped in darkness, a few hundred metres behind the Mbombela floodlights. "I find it difficult to feel proud that we are hosting this World Cup," he said. "To tell you the truth, I do not have time to think about football. My worries are greater."
» » » » [Excerpts: Guardian.UK (PDF)]
Jimmy Mohlala Update
by Brian Phillips on January 24, 2009
Run of Play
 Jimmy Mohlala: The only person who was fearless and had the guts to even institute the investigation against Jacob Dladla, was assassinated on 4 January 2009. His killers have yet to be arrested. He defied the ANC when the organisation tried to “recall” him for exposing corruption. |
Remember Lefika Emerging Equity, the company allegedly behind the corruption besetting the Mbombela World Cup stadium project? They've come up repeatedly in the story of Jimmy Mohlala's murder, and never on the right side: they collaborated with Jacob Dladla, whose crimes Mohlala helped reveal, on various forms of graft and contract fraud; they committed the bank fraud into which Mohlala was set to begin an investigation on the day after he was killed. And they're even more interesting than your average corporate villain, because they're co-owned by the Motaung family, the South African soccer dynasty that also controls the powerful Kaizer Chiefs club.
Now the Mail & Guardian reports that their chief executive officer, Chris Grib, fled the country late last year after Lefika was implicated in a World Cup-related tax evasion case.
The Mail & Guardian understands that Lefika fraudulently obtained a tax clearance certificate with the help of an employee of the South African Revenue Service (Sars) in 2006. The employee has since been suspended by Sars and an investigation is ongoing.
The tax clearance certificate enabled Lefika to bid for 2010 tenders in the Mbombela municipality. When Grib learned about the Sars investigation late last year he vanished.
Seems like a nice group of people. The same article has a good summary of the Mbombela corruption in general and Jimmy Mohlala's role in bringing it to light, including new details on Peter Nyoni, the African National Congress official who's been "fingered as the party's enforcer" in its conflict with Mohlala. In the meantime the Motaungs have been busy going after newspapers in the courts for alleging a connection between Lefika and the killing. Although not, according to at least one journalist, without trying to bribe them first.
Elsewhere in South Africa, the Zulu chief Mbongeleni Zondi was killed Thursday when gunmen with AK-47s opened fire on his car. It's another apparent political assassination—Zondi was an ally of ANC president Jacob Zuma (who's had his own troubles with corruption)—and while it probably has no direct relation to the World Cup, it points to a worsening political climate that can't be reassuring for FIFA.
» » » » [Run of Play]
Jimmy Mohlala, World Cup Whistleblower, Shot to Death in South Africa
Brian Phillips, Run of Play
January 5, 2009
 $1,2bn (R8,9bn). The estimated total construction cost of SA's 10 World Cup stadiums. [ANC Captain Blighs of S.Y. ZA-Titanic Charging Full 'Circus Maximus' Speed Ahead to 2010 World Cup Iceberg...] |
Jimmy Mohlala, the speaker of the Mbombela municipality in South Africa who exposed corruption related to the construction of the Mbombela World Cup stadium, was shot to death outside his house yesterday. It's too soon to say whether the murder has anything to do with the World Cup, but the timing is certainly suggestive.
The background is that about a year ago Mohlala blew the whistle on Jacob Dladla, the Mbombela municipal manager, for colluding with construction contractors to rig the multimillion-dollar stadium project for their own profit. "Manipulation of tenders, service delivery failures, victimisation and harassment of council employees, and failure to implement council resolutions as well as to keep the council informed on matters relating to the World Cup," begins one sentence in the Mail & Guardian report.
 Jacob Dladla, former Mbombela Municipal Manager dismissed for Mbombela World Cup Stadium tender irregularities, appointing Differ Mogale without council consent as 2010 provincial coordinator, at a cost of R480 000 a year; & failing to implement about 361 council decisions, resulting in the municipality being placed under curatorship last year. |
However, Dladla and the contractors apparently had high-powered political connections, and when a working committee of the African National Congress met to discuss the allegations, they wound up demanding Mohlala's resignation while saying nothing about Dladla. (Actually, that's not quite true. When asked about Dladla, their provincial chairperson said, "The ANC has its reasons for taking its decision, which will be communicated to the public in due time." Well, then. Wouldn't want to rush you.)
Mohlala, however, refused to resign, and the ANC was stuck trying to figure out what to do with him. And then two men showed up at Mohlala's house, started an argument about parking their car, shot his son in the ankle, and then shot and killed him. The police are saying that it would be irresponsible to see the murder as a reprisal, while members of the opposition party are describing it as "absolutely a political assassination" related to the World Cup.
One thing working against any immediate interpretation of the murder is that Mohlala seems to have accrued a bizarre legal record himself, having been charged with rape, drunk driving and assault in 2008 alone. However, even that fact is essentially opaque, as the charges were reported in only one South African newspaper—the same one each time—and they all seem to have come after the ANC's attempt to dismiss him. So it's possible to read them as political reprisals as well. Or maybe they occupy that seldom-trod middle ground between being a political martyr and getting drunk and assaulting a cop. In any case they've been completely ignored by every report I've seen on Mohlala's death.
It would be nice to think that FIFA, the World Cup Organizing Committee, or the ANC might take Mohlala's murder as an opportunity to address the allegations he helped to raise. But my guess is that it will only heighten the urgency with which they ignore them.
» » » » [Run of Play (PDF)]
2010 stadium project rocked by scandals
By Zinkie Sithole and Sheena Adams, IOL
March 02 2007 at 11:44AM
Lefika Board of Directors: The corruption charges relate to R43 million paid to construction consortium Lefika Emerging Equity Group, which Mogale allegedly approved without authorisation, to businessman and manager of Premier Soccer League club Kaizer Chiefs, Bobby Motaung, an executive director of Lefika  Herbert Theledi is the Managing Director and deputy Chairperson of Nthwese Properties and is a shareholder and Director of a pharmaceutical logistics company (Amalgamated Health Care), A Vehicle Dealership in Polokwane – VW/Audi and Sabie - Toyota, a Publishing house – Afro Educational Publishers and a Housing Development Company –Thandathula.  Chris Grib is the chief executive officer of Lefika Group.  Besides Lefika, Bobby Motaung is also on the Board of Directors for Anix Telecom, Afro Educational Publishers, Kaizer Holdings, Nthwese Investments and Lakeshore Trading (Pty) Ltd, and Fast Pulse Trading. |
Construction has not yet started on Mpumalanga's R920-million World Cup stadium and already authorities are investigating claims that the company appointed to design it was irregularly paid tens of millions of rands.
The Mbombela municipality, which is responsible for overseeing construction of the 43 000-seater stadium in Nelspruit, resolved that a full forensic investigation be launched into unauthorised payments made by its former 2010 co-ordinator, Differ Mogale.
The investigation will clarify whether construction consortium Lefika Emerging Equity Group was entitled to R43-million payments that Mogale allegedly approved without authorisation. Businessman and manager of Premier Soccer League club Kaizer Chiefs, Bobby Motaung, is executive director of Lefika.
The investigation will also probe alleged over-payments of more than R6,5-million to Lefika and subcontractor Platinum Sports. The payments were apparently discovered only after Mogale's appointment at the council was ruled irregular, and he was dismissed.
"Yes, we are expecting a report - and all other progress reports relating to 2010 - at our next council meeting but I can't say anything more at this stage without prejudicing matters," Mbombela municipality Speaker Jimmy Mohlala said.
The CEO of the Fifa World Cup organising committee, Danny Jordaan, refused to be drawn into the scandal, saying it was not for the committee to comment. "You must speak to the Mbombela municipality and to Bobby Motaung."
South African construction giant Basil Read, along with French-based Bouygues TP, have won the tender to build the World Cup stadium.
Seemingly surprised, Motaung - who is the son of Chiefs chairperson Kaizer Motaung - on Thursday night denied any knowledge of the probe.
Lefika, which is also involved in the stadium being built for Chiefs in Mogale City, has received R70-million for its work on the Nelspruit stadium.
Lefika chief executive Chris Grib was unavailable for comment on Thursday, but had said earlier in the week that he was unaware of any probe.
Platinum Sports chief executive Neil Fourie also denied knowledge of any probe. He insisted that all payments to his company had been legal.
The multipurpose stadium and a linked tourism and sports precinct is expected to be completed in May 2009. Actual construction has not yet started.
Mbombela municipality has, however, taken an unusually hard public line on the matter and this week fired Mogale and ordered disciplinary action against municipal manager Jacob Dladla. The council ruled that Dladla irregularly appointed Mogale to his R480 000-a-year position, and that he failed to exercise proper oversight over payments to various 2010 contractors.
The municipality also ordered that Dladla and executive mayor Justice Nsibande be held personally accountable for any losses incurred by Mogale.
"I don't want to say anything yet until I get (legal) advice on the order to pay for any losses. I also won't comment on votes of no confidence. I was deployed here by the African National Congress and can only be removed by the party," Nsibande said on Thursday.
The provincial government has meanwhile stepped in and appointed a senior government administrator, Johan Blaauw, as caretaker 2010 manager pending finalisation of the forensic audit.
Mbombela's full council was scheduled to consider some of the initial findings on Thursday while reviewing a wider probe report into alleged fraud, corruption and maladministration.
This article was originally published on page 3 of The Star on March 02, 2007
» » » » [IOL (PDF)]
» » [Ziwaphi: The Full Dladla Report (PDF)]
» » [Lowvelder: Sammy Insulted to the Grave (PDF)]
» » [News 24: SANEF: Hit List Outrageous (PDF)]
» » [All Africa: Threats Againts Journalists (PDF)]
» » [Ziwaphi: Dladla Report Summary: Exclusive]
» » [M&G: ANC in Stadium Corruption Cover Up (PDF)]
» » [WorldCupBuzz: Huge Setback for 2010 Host City (PDF)]
» » [M&G: 2010 Big Shot, Chris Grib skips South Africa (PDF)]
» » [Ziwaphi: Dladla Report: Jimmy Mohlala vindicated]
» » [Ziwaphi: Dladla Fired After 22 Months Suspension]
» » [News 24: Mpumalanga (World Cup) Municipal Manager Dladla Fired (PDF)]
» » [10-05-13: Sowetan: Mabuza sues newspapers for defamation]
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