Businessman in court for Beaufort West ‘tender fraud and corruption’

A fifth person has appeared in court in connection with alleged tender fraud and corruption which rocked the Beaufort West municipality when the Hawks arrested the town’s mayor Quinton Louw and speaker Noel Constable in September.

Central Karoo district municipality speaker Mkhululi Hangana handed himself over to the Hawks on September 17 with municipal official Norwood Kotze, and they made a brief court appearance before being released on bail of R5,000 each.

Hawks Western Cape spokesperson Zinzi Hani said the arrests were in connection with an investigation into allegations of an irregularly awarded contract dating back to 2019 relating to the upgrades of roads.

A Hawks serious commercial crime investigation team then arrested businessman Taelo Itumeleng Polycarp Kgobokoe in Harrismith in the Free State on September 30.

His company, Ihlathi Trading 21cc trading as Massive Dynamic, was attached as a juristic person.

Kgobokoe and the company appeared in the Beaufort West magistrate’s court on Tuesday in connection with alleged tender fraud and corruption worth R600,000.

Hani said Kgobokoe, who faces eight charges of corruption and fraud, was remanded in custody and was expected back in court on October 14 for a bail application.

She said Louw, Constable, Hangana, and Kotze were expected back in court on November 26.

The arrests triggered the ANC’s “step aside” clause which effectively suspends party members from public office if they are accused of criminal charges. Louw and Hangana were removed from the ANC’s candidate lists ahead of the upcoming local government elections.

The municipality is traditionally seen as an ANC stronghold in the mostly DA-run Western Cape, but the DA managed to wrestle control of it first as a coalition in 2016 and then outright in 2017, before losing it again to an ANC and Karoo Democratic Force (KDF) coalition in 2018 — under whom Constable served as mayor.

It is one of a handful of municipalities in the Western Cape which consistently receives qualified audits by the auditor-general.

In its 2019/2020 municipal audit report, the auditor-general gave a disclaimed opinion in its report for Beaufort West, meaning the auditors were not given sufficient evidence on which to base their audit opinion.

In 2019 Beaufort West municipality speaker Kosie Haarhoff released a statement to “clarify misperceptions about irregular expenditure” and “misleading media reports which create the impression that irregular expenditure equates to money that has been misappropriated/stolen”.

This was in reference to the release of a municipal audit report by the auditor-general that year which referred to irregular expenditure of R52m relating to transactions in which supply chain management policies were not always followed.

“This kind of reporting adversely impacts on the reputation of a municipality and has consequences for all municipalities,” read the statement.  

“In the interest of stakeholder relationship management, it becomes important that the auditor-general take reasonable steps to ensure the public is properly informed to avoid unnecessary tension between municipalities and its citizens,” it read.

“Audit terms and jargon are confusing to the public as it is, and the auditor-general staff should ensure the public is educated in terms such as fruitless and wasteful expenditure, irregular and unauthorised expenditure, unqualified, qualified and clean audit opinions,” said Haarhoff.

Western Cape ANC spokesperson Sifiso Mtsweni said while Hangana and Louw were both strong ANC candidates, the party had many candidates on its list for the Beaufort West municipality for the upcoming elections.

“The arrests obviously did not come at the best time because we had gone through a very vigorous process of candidate selection across the province and across the country,” he said.

“Comrade Quinton and comrade Mkhululi have not only been nominated by branches of the ANC but you would know we go through community meetings. They have gone through that process and they were endorsed,” he said.

“At all times we safeguard the integrity of the ANC as an organisation, which has gone through a very difficult period where it has been associated with things it would not want to associate itself with,” said Mtsweni.

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