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This week was meant to see the start of the Free State asbestos fraud and corruption case in the high court in Bloemfontein – with the first witnessed scheduled to be heard – but proceedings were postponed first from Wednesday to Thursday and on Thursday to Friday, to allow for Judge Phillip Loubser to rule on a plea brought forward by one of the accused relating to the jurisdiction of the court as it relates to the case against them.
On trial are 17 accused, including both people and several businesses. The accused face fraud and corruption charges relating to a R255-million tender for the removal of asbestos roofs in the old townships across the province.
Proceedings did not go as expected, however, as Moroadi Cholota demanded that a plea she had raised previously that related to jurisdiction be heard before the trial commences. Cholota was the personal assistant of then premier of the Free State and another accused, Ace Magashule, at the time of the award of the tender in 2014. According to News24, Cholota’s matter has to do with Section 106 (1)(f) of the Criminal Procedures Act, previously raised, that her attorney told the court was required to be traversed before the trial can begin. The postponement was meant for the prosecution to prepare written submissions in response to this.
The case relates to a tender allegedly awarded irregularly to a joint venture (JV) between Blackhead Consulting and Diamond Hill Trading, companies owned by businessmen Edwin Sodi and the late Ignatius Mpambani, respectively. The JV was awarded the contract without going to tender, to oversee the eradication of asbestos roofs in about 300 000 houses across the province’s townships.
Details of the project first became public through the state capture commission testimony of former Free State MEC and later premier, Mxolisi Dukwana, who accused Magashule of several irregularities while in office. Of the asbestos tender, Dukwana told the commission that the work was never done, despite the money being paid out to the JV, with Magashule also benefitting. In other testimony by Kgotso Manyike – a director of ORI Group, one of the companies sub-contracted by the JV – the commission was told that no other work was done expect an initial assessment process by his team, for which they were never paid by the JV. Manyike and ORI Group were both named by the National Prosecuting Authority among the accused.
Mpambani was killed in a suspected hit in 2017 in Sandton, the same year that Magashule was elected secretary-general of the ANC, after having completed his 10-year term as premier. Further Evidence heard before the commission revealed that an unsolicited proposal for the project was allegedly pitched to Magashule’s office by Mpambani. Sodi has in the past described Mpambani as the one who “opened doors” for the contract to materialise, and was also the one handling all transactions relating to the JV.
