Love me tender: Free State officials in dock over big payday in exchange for a R243m contract

Five senior officials from the Free State agriculture and rural development department — who are alleged to have had a hand in steering a R243m tender to a company that didn’t qualify for it — have found themselves in the dock.

The five - Lerato Mngomezulu, 39; Disebo Masiteng, 59; Mokemane Ndumo, 52; Mahlomola Mofokeng, 55; and Mbana Thabethe - appeared in the Bloemfontein regional court on Tuesday facing charges of corruption, fraud and money laundering.

This follows the arrest of erstwhile department CFO Seipati Dlamini and businesswoman Lenah Mohapi in July, after investigators probing the Estina Dairy scandal uncovered an allegedly illicit financial relationship which gives new meaning to the term “friends with benefits”.

According to an indictment placed before court, Mohapi and Dlamini were central to the graft bonanza, which has its origins in 2014.

Mohapi’s company, Rekgonne Community Projects, was awarded a R243m contract to be implementing agents of an agricultural project meant to uplift emerging black farmers. This windfall came despite Mohapi and her company’s alleged failure to attend compulsory bid briefings, as well as having faked a BBBEE compliance certificate.

Mngomezulu, Masiteng, Ndumo and Mofokeng were all members of the bid evaluation committee. With the alleged blessing of former head of department Thabethe, they endorsed Rekgonne, who then came in for a huge payday.

The quid pro quo, prosecutors allege, was that Mohapi and her firm blessed Dlamini in a series of payments as recompense, totalling more than R270,000.

These 16 payments, according to the indictment, were disguised as refunds from Telkom, loan repayments and even reimbursements for medical services. The payments were made over six months.

This underpins an alleged money laundering scheme to mask the source of their ill-gotten gains.   

The officials and Thabethe find themselves in the crosshairs for turning a blind eye to the scheme, and for ensuring the company — which did not qualify for the tender — went laughing all the way to the bank.

Collectively the seven face 58 counts of fraud, money laundering, corruption and uttering, and are expected to stand trial in September.

• This article has been corrected to reflect the payments allegedly received to have been  worth more than R270,000 and not R550,000 as initially reported.   

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