In June 2020 the high court in Pretoria set aside the tender<\/a>, citing the \u201cirrational\u201d and \u201cunfair\u201d way in which it was evaluated and BBT was allowed to game the system \u2013 but the court was not asked to engage with the suspect payments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now a letter from the DPCI (the Hawks)<\/a> addressed to Tshwane\u2019s city manager requests information in connection with an investigation into \u201callegations of fraud and corruption committed against City of Tshwane relating to the [tender], which was awarded to Balimi Barui Trading, MDZ Holdings and Rheinland Investment CC\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Previous reports by amaBhungane provided evidence that the owner of Balimi Barui Trading (BBT), Hendrick Kganyago, paid the R15-million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The payments were split between two separate companies branded as alleged fronts for Malema \u2013 a claim he rejects \u2013 and another company linked to Dlamini, then an EFF MP and currently the party\u2019s secretary general.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n The two companies linked to Malema were Mahuna Investments, headed by Malema\u2019s cousin, Matsobane Phaleng, and Santaclara Trading, whose founding director in 2013 was one Tebatso Malema.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Santaclara\u2019s current director is Jimmy Matlebyane, a young DJ who goes by Jimmy-fire Malema on Facebook.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Dlamini-linked company that Kganyago allegedly paid is DMM Media and Entertainment. The company\u2019s sole director is Wesley Dlamini, a relative of Marshall, who has worked for at least one of his other companies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Malema, Dlamini and the EFF refuse to respond to amaBhungane\u2019s questions and the party has banned us from its events. Malema\u2019s relatives, as previously, failed to respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Malema has previously distanced himself from Santaclara and Mahuna, denying that they are used for his own benefit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He told the Sunday Times<\/em> in 2019 that his family members were in business independently of him: \u201cThey are young boys who are trying to find their feet \u2026 they are legitimate traders, but because of their association with me, you guys want to destroy them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dlamini has previously denied interfering in municipal tenders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n AmaBhungane has written<\/a> about Dlamini\u2019s alleged role as a \u201cfixer\u201d in the metros. His name initially came up<\/a> in connection with a R1-billion fleet contract that the City of Johannesburg awarded to Afrirent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That company also made payments to the same two Malema-linked companies that received money from Kganyago\u2019s BBT.<\/p>\n\n\n\n BBT should not have been given a share of the fuel tender because its quoted prices were far higher than those of other bidders. In spite of this and a bid committee recommendationthat the prices be negotiated down, BBT was allowed to rip off the city by charging extortionate rates for fuel \u2013 something the city put down to an \u201chonest mistake\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Payments to the EFF-linked companies continued after BBT had secured its lucrative position and the fuel began to flow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In their letter, the Hawks request the city to provide them with, among other things, an explanation of the needs analysis for the tender, documents related to the various tender committees and the declarations of interests of members of the committees, and the \u201cemployment contract and job description of Mr Stanley Kganyago\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Stanley Kganyago, as a later amaBhungane report revealed<\/a>, is a close relative of Hendrick and was a senior official in the city\u2019s fleet division. His name appeared on tender documents and he was, at least formally, responsible for the tender. Kganyago did not respond to questions from amaBhungane.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It remains to be seen whether the Hawks will confine the investigation to the tender process and the Kganyago family\u2019s conflict of interest, or whether they will go after the money flows to EFF-linked companies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A Hawks spokesperson said: “We can only confirm that indeed [the] Hawks are investigating this case but cannot at this stage divulge more information into what [the] investigation is looking into.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n There is considerable evidence to suggest that Mahuna (since renamed Rosario) and Santaclara have been used, at least in part, to benefit Malema and the EFF.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you like this story and want more, subscribe to our newsletter<\/span><\/a> and be the first to get our latest news and investigations.<\/i><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Daily Maverick published detailed allegations<\/a> suggestive of the company\u2019s account being used for Malema\u2019s benefit, something the EFF leader has vehemently denied \u2013 or claimed to be unaware of.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is a similar story with Santaclara.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Matlebyane, the company\u2019s current director, has listed 49 Edward Rubenstein Drive in Sandown, Johannesburg, among his residential and business addresses \u2013 the same property owned by Malema\u2019s Munzhedzi Family Trust.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Both amaBhungane\u2019s own information and a Sunday Times report<\/a> have suggested that Malema exercised some control over the Santaclara account.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At a media conference in 2020 he denied this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Regarding Mahuna, Malema told reporters, \u201cAll my cousins are active business-people in their own right. They are EFF members and EFF leaders. We spend most of the time together. What he [Malema\u2019s cousin, Matsobane Phaleng] does with his own money\u2026 is not my business.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n He made similar points about DMM and Santa Clara, stating he is not involved and that they received legitimate business payments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Both DMM and Santclara also received money<\/a> from controversial politically-connected business man and owner of LTE Consulting, Thulani Majola.<\/p>\n\n\n\n All three companies have resisted disclosing their actual beneficial ownership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n AmaBhungane requested access to the company share registers of DMM Media and Entertainment (Pty) Ltd, Rosario Investments (Pty) Ltd, and Santaclara Trading (Pty) in December 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When no response was received within the legislated time period, we sought to enforce our rights to access the share registers by submitting complaints to the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC) in April 2020; while some progress has been made \u2013 and in one case, a compliance notice issued \u2013 there has been no resolution of any of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Read more on the EFF tenders<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Tender comrades part 2: Tshwane tenderpreneur\u2019s R15m \u2018EFF tithe\u2019<\/a> Dodgy payments, first revealed by amaBhungane in September 2019, were at the time the strongest indication of the EFF taking kickbacks in metros where it emerged as kingmaker after the 2016 local government elections. Now the Hawks are asking questions. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":20968,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[231,3,548,123,312,303,313,125,354,425],"class_list":["post-15229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-stories","tag-amab","tag-amabhungane","tag-city-of-tshwane","tag-eff","tag-fuel-tender","tag-hawks","tag-hendrick-kganyago","tag-julius-malema","tag-tenders","tag-tshwane-fuel-tender"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15229"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15229\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30060,"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15229\/revisions\/30060"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/Hawks-letter-pic.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/em>High court sets aside dodgy Tshwane fuel tender, fingers company that paid Malema \u2018kickbacks\u2019<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"