Former MP Pule Mabe among seven arrested in connection with waste picker tuk-tuk deal

ANC NEC member, former MP and former party spokesperson Pule Mabe appeared in the Palm Ridge specialised commercial crimes court on Wednesday with six co-accused for alleged corruption. 

Hawks spokesperson Brig Thandi Mbambo said they were arrested after a forensic report by the Special Investigating Unit into a tender issued in October 2016 by the Gauteng department of agriculture and rural development requesting proposals to integrate and formalise waste operatives into the mainstream waste management economy.

“A tender of about R27m was awarded to Enviro-Mobi in March 2017. The contract agreement between the department and Enviro-Mobi stipulated the department may consider to pay on condition that 50% of the work has been completed and no upfront payments may be made to the service provider,” she said.

However, it was established during the investigation that R25m was paid to Enviro-Mobi for 200 motorised three-wheelers, “though all goods were in the possession of the service provider”. 

The tuk-tuks, or karikis, were intended for 58 waste pickers in the Ekurhuleni municipality but they were not delivered.

It was also discovered the service provider later issued a letter of demand to the department for a further payment of more than R9m for safekeeping, storage and ancillary services for the fleet.

“The company also failed to disclose, in its bid proposal, its affiliation to [Mabe] and misrepresented to the department that it had supplied the fleet as well as fleet-related services,” said Mbambo. 

A case was registered at the Johannesburg Central police station in October 2020, prompting the Hawks investigation.

The Financial Mail reported in 2021 that Mabe created Enviro-Mobi, but later quit as a director and left it to his cousin to run, even though he apparently kept the intellectual property rights.

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