Ex-ANC spokesperson charged with fraud

Seven suspects – including local gov­ernment officials and a former African Nation Congress (ANC) spokesperson – have been charged with fraud in a South African court.

The defendants appeared in court follow­ing an investigation into a 27 million rand (£1.2m; $1.6m) government tender.

The investigation found that five years ago the provincial government in Gauteng signed a contract with a company named Envi­ro-Mobi for waste management services.

Enviro-Mobi did not disclose that it had links to ex-ANC spokesperson Pule Mabe, who was an MP at the time, a police state­ment said.

The suspects were not asked to enter pleas but Mabe and his wife denied the allegations.

The court hearing took place on Wednes­day after the seven suspects had handed themselves into South Africa’s elite police unit, the Hawks.

Alongside Mabe and his wife, the defen­dants included two executives from Guateng’s provincial government.

All seven accused were awarded bail at the hearing, which took place in Ekurhuleni, a municipality just east of the city of Johannes­burg.

Outside the courthouse, Mabe told local media he was stepping down from the ANC’s executive committee, but “not because he is guilty”.

The contract in question stipulated that Enviro-Mobi should receive upfront pay­ments and that money should only be handed to the company after a portion of its work was completed, police spokesperson Thandi Mbambo said.

However, the Hawks’ investigation found that Gauteng’s Department of Agriculture paid Enviro-Mobi 25 million rand for 200 vehicles, even though the goods were “still in the possession of the service provider”. —BBC