Freedom Front Plus requests PP to expand tender investigation into Deputy President's sons

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The Freedom Front Plus (VF Plus) will request the Public Protector (PP) to expand the existing tender investigation into Gauteng government contracts awarded to companies linked to Deputy President Paul Mashatile’s sons.

In February 2024, the Freedom Front Plus lodged a complaint with the PP regarding tenders allegedly awarded under suspicious circumstances to two companies where the Deputy President's sons, Thabiso Mashatile and Tinyiko Mvelase, served as directors.

At the time, it seemed that the companies, Ngwato and Manzi Group and Modipadi Nokaneng, had received three contracts from the Gauteng Department of Infrastructure Development within a span of just three months in 2022.

The party found it suspicious that the Deputy President's two sons were appointed as directors of the two companies at around the same time that the tenders were awarded.

Network24 recently obtained new facts through a Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA) request against the Gauteng government.

It now appears that a total of five tenders had been awarded to the companies in those three months, not just three.

Recent written replies from the Gauteng government regarding the two companies indicate that the payments made to them since 2022 are nearly R1 million more than initially thought.

On top of that, both companies are apparently claiming additional payments from the Gauteng government. Modipadi Nokaneng is claiming R43,9 million, while the Ngwato and Manzi Group is claiming R94 318. 

The Freedom Front Plus will bring this new information to the PP's attention. The party lodged its initial complaint precisely because the tenders had been awarded under suspicious circumstances.

Network24’s investigation reveals that Thabiso Mashatile served as director of the company when two tenders were awarded in March 2022. He, however, resigned as director just two months later on 10 May 2022.

On the same day, Tinyiko Mvelase was appointed as director. According to Network24’s investigation, he was appointed just one month before another contract was awarded to the Ngwato and Manzi Group by the Gauteng Department of Infrastructure Development in June 2022. 

Mvelase then resigned as director on 10 November 2023.

On the face of it, it seems that the Deputy President's two sons were deliberately appointed as directors of the Ngwato and Manzi Group at specific times so as to lend more political weight to the company's tender applications to the Gauteng Department of Infrastructure Development.

There are other strange facts which also stand out and might indicate that the contracts were awarded to a company that is not actually capable of performing the work.

When the Freedom Front Plus lodged the complaint, the Ngwato and Manzi Group's sole director was a 24-year-old woman named Thato Nokaneng, who was unemployed according to her TikTok profile.

The three contracts awarded to the company entail highly specialised and technical work, including the procurement and supply of autoclave equipment (which sterilises items using high-pressure steam), building materials, and fire-monitoring and -fighting services.

This inevitably raises the question of whether Nokaneng possesses the expertise needed to provide these goods and services.

Moreover, the registered address for the company is a residential property in Alexandra, a suburb of Johannesburg.

The Freedom Front Plus will take up the matter with the PP and convey the new facts that came to light.