R10m corruption alleged in tussle over eNatis

File photo: Armand Hough/Independent Media

File photo: Armand Hough/Independent Media

Published Mar 26, 2017

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Johannesburg - The tug of war between the national Department of Transport and Tasima over the handover of the eNatis system to the government looks set to get dirtier.

This after advocate Makhosini Msibi, chief executive of the Road Traffic Management Corporation (RTMC), became the latest person to be accused of allegedly using his connection to political heavyweights in government to charge former Minister of Transport Sbu Ndebele for corruption involving R10 million.

Tasima and Transport Minister Dipuo Peters as well as the RTMC will face off again this week in a bid to settle the handover of the eNatis system to the government following an order of the Constitutional Court made on November 9.

Tasima has already set out conditions which could delay the handover and further undermine the Concourt order.

Now Msibi is accused of having influenced the police investigators to charge Ndebele and his co-accused.

But spokesman Simon Zwane has described the latest allegations as “a smear campaign” to undermine and tarnish the image of Msibi, the transport minister and RTMC legal team “by spreading false information implicating them in an alleged political interference in the criminal matter involving the former transport minister and others”.

“The RTMC regards these alle- gations as baseless, unfounded and unfortunate and believes that if such threats of political interference had been made, the police would have laid a charge of intimidation and defeating the ends of justice. The absence of such charges confirms that the allegations are nothing but a witch-hunt intended to mislead the public,” Zwane said.

He said Msibi’s involvement in the investigations came after President Jacob Zuma had already issued a proclamation for the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) to probe the illegal and multibillion-rand Tasima contract extension. At the time, it was alleged that the former director-general of the transport department, George Mahlalela, had extended Tasima’s contract without having followed proper tender procedures.

At the time, Ndebele was transport minister.

Said Zwane: “In the course of the investigation the SIU interviewed a number of people, including and not limited to the CEO of RTMC, advocate Makhosini Msibi and the legal team representing the RTMC and the Department of Transport.

“It is unfortunate that some have pursued a stratagem and conspiracy theory to implicate the RTMC, in particular the CEO, who was not ever a party to issues that led to the proclamation by the president and the criminal process.”

He said Msibi never influenced anyone or complained about the progress of the investigations.

However, the allegations that the decision to charge Ndebele was politically motivated was initially made by Tasima in the Pretoria Regional Court last February. Tasima made the allegations in a bid to have criminal charges against Ndebele, Mahlalela, former transport department deputy director-general Gilbert Zakhele Thwala, Tasima chief executive Tebogo Mphuti and Justine Sibusiso Ncube dropped.

It also wanted charges against companies Mandate Strategy Roadmap and Delivery (Pty) Ltd, Brand Partners and Sinosa Construction dropped.

At the time Tasima, which is chaired by Ncube - the husband of KwaZulu-Natal MEC for Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs Nomusa Dube-Ncube - alleged that the charges against Ndebele were at the behest of Shaun Abrahams, the national director of public prosecutions. They claimed police investigations were not completed and the accused were not interviewed prior to the decision to charge them.

Ndebele was the first to be charged on December 14, 2015.

The prosecution, through advocate Tebogo Serunye, denied the claims, saying the decision was based on prima facie evidence against Ndebele and his co-accused. Implicating Ndebele in the corruption, Serunye told the Regional Court the charge against Ndebele arose from a deposit made into his account.

One of the witnesses in the case made a sworn statement that the finance section of Tasima received an instruction fromMphuthi to start paying a company, Brand Partners, a monthly amount of R2m.

Brand Partners was solely owned by Ncube. The State in the charge sheet alleged that Ncube took more than R10.4m and transferred it into the account of his construction company, Sinosa. According to the charge sheet, about R5.8m was deposited into Ndebele’s Investec account from Sinosa.

The source of the remaining amount of R10.4m was unknown but the State argued Ndebele was charged after failing to disclose the sums.

Independent Media

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