Well-known Eastern Cape football club boss Rodney “Mash” Mashaya has been languishing in jail for the past two weeks for theft committed in 2009, and may stay there for the next five years.
The controversial civil engineer, who owns the East London-based ABC Motsepe provincial league outfit FC Buffalo, will know his fate when he reappears for sentencing at the Komani Regional Court next Thursday.
He made headlines in January, when he reported to police that his white neighbours in a smart Cove Rock suburban estate allegedly hurled racial insults and assaulted him.
At the time “Mash”, as Mashaya is affectionately known in football circles, claimed his white neighbours in the affluent Cove Rock Country Estate used the K-word during a verbal confrontation and told him he was not welcome in the neighbourhood.
Also in January, when massive illegal land grabs took place on the R72 road near Cove Rock, Mashaya was identified by locals as the chairman of their land invasion committee.
At the time he first denied being part of the operation, saying he was merely a spectator.
However, later he admitted to being the “chairman”, allegedly after he being requested to stand by the community.
Mashaya was found guilty in 2016 by Komani regional magistrate Onika van Papendorp of the 2009 theft of over R240 000 from Ikhala TVET College in Komani – money he unlawfully spent after it had been deposited in the account of his company, Zezethu Engineers.
According to the charge sheet, Mashaya’s company was appointed as a principal agent to manage a building contract worth R1.6-million and were paid R446 360 for their services.
The company was later paid R1.2-million for the job – money Zezethu was meant to pay over to the construction company responsible for the building works.
However, Mashaya’s company only transferred R71 4274 and illegally pocketed R485 725.
The court found that he and his business partner, Rodgers Klaas, later “misappropriated” this money.
The court found that a substantial number of cash withdrawals were made from the call account, which Zezethu Engineers had effectively treated like their own private bank account.
“An analysis of the transactions on the account indicated that R714 274 was paid to and therefore R485 725 was misappropriated from the call account.”
The duo were arrested in 2013.
They later pleaded guilty to the theft, and were convicted in September 2016.
The court sentenced them to five years in prison, but the sentence was suspended for five years on condition that they repaid the money they misappropriated within six months of being sentenced.
Part of Mashaya’s sentence included being subjected to house arrest for three years with community service without compensation for 16 hours per month for three years.
Klaas, according to sources within the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), managed to repay R242862, which was his half of the misappropriated R485 725, and avoided going to prison.
But Mashaya failed to find the cash and now faces the rest of the prison sentence.
The state is pushing for the suspended sentence to be fully effected by court next Thursday when he appears before Van Papendorp.
“It is game over for him now. He was afforded all the time to repay the money but he did not, hence the state is now pushing for the suspended five-year imprisonment sentence term to be fully effected when he appears again in court,” said the NPA source.
“Currently he is languishing in jail until the matter is finalised next week. I do not see any prospects of him escaping jail this time around,” said another source within the NPA.
The NPA sources also said the state had been unsuccessfully searching for Mashaya “for some time, until he was arrested in East London last month and placed under house arrest before he was escorted to face his demons in the court and remanded in police custody until he is sentenced next week”.
NPA provincial spokesman Tsepo Ndwalaza yesterday said he was unable to find information on the matter as the prosecutor responsible was on leave.
Numerous attempts to reach Mashaya’s lawyer, Henry van Breda, proved fruitless.
Mashaya is not new to controversy. In June 2015 he was ordered by a court to pay over R1-million to Mlibo Sikrweqe, who sued him for failing to settle a loan deal.
The East London High Court heard how in January 2014, Mashaya and Sikrweqe entered into an agreement for Sikrweqe to pay R50 000 into Mashaya’s Zezethu Engineers account. The firm was handling a project to patch potholes and do other road maintenance between Komani and Dordrecht.
It was agreed that: “ pay R50000 into Zezethu Engineers to save or rescue the project and that would pay Sikrweqe R102 8221.49 upon completion of the project on or before February 28 2014,” the court heard at the time.
Court papers did not elaborate on why more than R1-million was to be paid out on a R50 000 loan. — asandan@dispatch.co.za