Hunt for killer of ANC donor

Bozwana's bullet-riddled Renault Clio after the drive-by shooting on the N1 highway on Friday.

Bozwana's bullet-riddled Renault Clio after the drive-by shooting on the N1 highway on Friday.

Published Oct 4, 2015

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Johannesburg - Gauteng police are still on a massive manhunt for the killers of controversial ANC funder and North West businessman Wandile Bozwana in a drive-by shooting on the N1 highway on Friday.

Bozwana was travelling north from Johannesburg with female companion Mpho Baloyi when the fatal attack took place.

Baloyi was in the driver’s seat when a silver-grey BMW M3 pulled up next to their vehicle near the Garsfontein off-ramp.

A gunman simply pulled out a gun and fired multiple shots in the direction of Bozwana, who was alongside Baloyi in the passenger seat.

He fired 12 times and 9 of the bullets hit Bozwana in his body.

Baloyi was also hit in the attack but she managed to drive to the nearby Menlyn Shopping Centre for help.

Bozwana and Baloyi were taken to Unitas Hospital, but he succumbed to his multiple gunshot wounds.

Police spokeswoman Asnath Malatji said the police did not know the motive for the killing but were investigating a case of murder and of attempted murder.

Bozwana is known for his bitter rivalry with North West Premier Supra Mahumapelo over the allocation of a huge infrastructure government tender amounting to billions of rand.

In May, Bozwana accused Mahumapelo of giving government tenders to his wife and his political supporters.

Due to the rivalry, Bozwana was instrumental in funding ANC comrades known as Mapogo, who are opposed to Mahumapelo, and that allowed him and his companies to secure major tenders in the Dr Ruth Segomotsi Mompati District Municipality.

The district municipality comprises the towns of Vryburg, Taung, Bloemhof, Schweizer-Reneke and Christiana in the North West.

Prior to Mahumapelo’s appointment as Premier in 2014, he also wielded support in the capital Mafikeng, which is waning.

Mahumapelo’s group is known as the “Taliban” and had recently taken over ANC affairs in the Dr Ruth Mompati district.

The ANC regional executive which supported Bozwana was recently suspended and an interim structure set up.

All of this happened while Bozwana was entangled in a lot of legal disputes with several government departments in the North West, which either terminated contracts with his companies or simply refused to grant him any government contracts.

Adding to his miseries, the tragedy struck a few days after Mahumapelo and Bozwana squared up against each other in the Constitutional Court on Tuesday last week.

Mahumapelo and his government had approached the Constitutional Court, asking it to force Bozwana to return an amount of R30 million to its provincial bank account.

Bozwana had gained access to the funds after he successfully lodged a lawsuit against the North West provincial government for failing to pay him for his role in the construction of Brits’s main hospital.

In 2008, the North West Department of Public Works (DPW) awarded a tender for the construction of the Brits hospital through his company Tsoga Developers and Ilima (Pty) Ltd.

It was a joint venture.

In August 2009, Ilima was liquidated and in 2010, the Department of Public Works cancelled the contract.

Unhappy about the cancellation, Bozwana then claimed that his company was entitled to be paid for work done and materials supplied before the cancellation and that it had suffered damages because of the cancellation.

In June 2010, the Department of Public Works entered into a settlement agreement in which it agreed to pay Tsoga approximately R23m.

Upon their failure to pay this amount, Tsoga instituted proceedings against the Department in the North West High Court in Mahikeng.

The parties came to a settlement agreement and in May 2013 the high court made their settlement an order of court.

In April 2014, the department brought an application before the high court for rescission of the settlement order.

That application was dismissed.

The Department of Public Works also applied for leave to appeal but it later abandoned it.

In September 2014, Tsoga obtained an execution order for the attachment of 44 vehicles belonging to the department.

A month later, the department approached Tsoga for another settlement agreement.

The department agreed that that it owed Tsoga approximately R47m, being the original judgment amount, VAT, interest and legal costs.

Shortly thereafter, it paid R20m to Tsoga and undertook to pay the balance of the debt by February 28 2015.

When it failed to do so, Tsoga then obtained another execution order for the seizure of funds in the bank account of the Department of Public Works. The sum was approximately R30m.

In response to that attachment, Mahumapelo and approached the high court to challenge the execution order.

He made two applications, one of was the high court to suspend the execution and the attachment of the 44 vehicles and the R30m.

The second application was brought under the Promotion of Administrative Justice Act (PAJA) where Mahumapelo asked the court to set aside the June 2010 settlement agreement.

It was the agreement where Public Works acknowledged that it owed Bozwana R47m.

Mahumapelo argued that the original settlement agreement was concluded unlawfully and that the attachment of the bank account was unconstitutional because it directed the attachment of provincial revenue funds.

The high court dismissed their first application.

In the Constitutional Court, Mahumapelo wanted the court to force Bozwana to return the R30m while awaiting judgment on the PAJA application.

He said Bozwana’s continued retention of government money was interfering with their monetary policies, and the department of public works was unable to fulfil its constitutional obligations.

Bozwana disagreed.

He argued that the funds were held in his attorney’s trust and would not disappear.

In his court papers, Bozwana also argued that their PAJA matter in the high court was five years out of time, and therefore lacked merit.

Tsoga also contended that the matter did not raise a constitutional issue because the transferred funds came from the Department of Public Works’s own account, which did not form part of the provincial revenue fund.

Judgment was reserved in the matter. - The Sunday Independent

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