Last month it was reported that work had come to a halt because the "cash-strapped" former ANC Youth League president, who has been expelled from the party, apparently owed the builder over R400000.

But on Friday construction workers were busy at the property for which Malema has paid R3.6-million.

The house is taking shape with most of the upper-storey walls of the three-storey mansion completed.

Once completed the house, which is in a gated community - and was this week guarded by a security guard as well - will dwarf other properties in the street. It also features underground parking.

Federico de Gregorio, owner of Kwandisa Construction, the company building the house, declined to answer questions about work on the house .

He said: "Progress on the site is a personal thing between my client and myself ... [this includes] how the progress goes, when do we stop and when do we carry on."

De Gregorio confirmed that workers on the site were from his company.

Asked if progress had in any way "temporarily" stopped last month, De Gregorio said: "Construction has not stopped ... and it never stopped and the programme that we are working to has nothing to do with anybody."

Malema stunned the previous owner by destroying a spacious house last year to make way for his mansion.

At the time people openly questioned the source of his wealth and how he acquired the funds to buy and tear down the house and build anew.

The Sunday Times later revealed that the architect's fee of R1.2-million was paid by Limpopo businessman Steve Bosch.

Malema could not be reached for comment this week and did not respond to messages left on his cellphone.

Last week the Sunday Times shed more light on how he made millions through provincial tenders in his home province of Limpopo.

He benefi ted, via his family trust, from government deals and business associates secretly bought him a R3.9-million farm near Polokwane.

The extent of how Malema scored money through his Ratanang Family Trust was laid bare in a PricewaterhouseCoopers audit into his financial affairs that was prepared for the National Treasury.

The audit puts Malema at the centre of a web of dubious payments and dodgy tenders that were rigged to go to his friends' companies, in return for what appear to be kickbacks paid into the trust account.