\n<\/strong>
\nImmediately after the murder, on April 8 last year, the police announced that they were treating it as politically motivated.<\/p>\n
Asked if they still believed it was a political hit, Makgale said: \u201cYes. We don\u2019t have any new facts at this stage.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kondile, based at the council offices in East London, was in Port Elizabeth attending a workshop. The shooting took place on New Brighton\u2019s busy Embizweni Square.<\/p>\n
The gunmen reportedly fled the scene in a white bakkie without stealing anything.<\/p>\n
AmaBhungane put questions to Port Elizabeth\u2019s police spokesperson, Warrant Officer Dumile Gwavu, on April 24 and 25. He said he would respond on April 28, but no reply was received.<\/p>\n
The Eastern Cape police media centre initially said it could not comment because this might prejudice an ongoing investigation. Later, Mills said \u201cslow progress is [being] made at this point\u201d and that \u201cdetectives are confident they will solve the case.<\/p>\n
“Crime intelligence officers have joined the detective investigating the case, forming a small task team tracing and following up on all leads.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said local media had been approached and that a press article had appeared in March \u201cindicating that the SAPS is seeking information from any person who can assist with information\u201d.<\/p>\n
Eyewitness Police have not interviewed him.<\/p>\n Notiti Kondile expressed her dissatisfaction about the handling of the case.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have heard nothing from the police. They took both his phones and said they were using them to investigate. How long does that take?<\/p>\n \u201cI have stayed with his wife since the killing and they have never contacted us,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Notiti refused to name Kondile\u2019s wife, and amaBhungane was unable to contact her.<\/p>\n Senior managers in the Buffalo City human settlements department, who asked not to be named, said the police had also not interviewed them.<\/p>\n \u201cThere was a lot of emotion and people talked a lot after Sabelo was killed. It was speculated that there might be a connection with housing tenders, but nothing was ever proved,\u201d one said.<\/p>\n They said Kondile oversaw all metro housing projects. His willingness to court unpopularity was highlighted after his promotion in 2012, when he was involved in a decision to cancel a big RDP housing contract where the contractor had under-performed.<\/p>\n Death threat Matiwane would not elaborate.<\/p>\n Kondile is not the only Eastern Cape housing boss to have been killed last year.<\/p>\n Three months after Kondile\u2019s death, Buyisile Mkavu, an ANC councillor and the head of housing in Nelson Mandela Bay, was shot six times.<\/p>\n A local man, Bongani Cagwe, has been charged with his murder.<\/p>\n * Got a tip-off for us about this story? Click here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n The police have failed to solve the deaths of two government officials, seen as victims of politically motivated hits<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22946,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4032","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-stories"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4032","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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4032"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4032\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30845,"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4032\/revisions\/30845"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n<\/strong>
\nDuncan Molefe, a New Brighton resident interviewed by amaBhungane, confirmed a woman was in the car at the time of the murder. \u201cI heard shots and rushed out of the house; I saw the car Kondile was in and the bakkie rushing off. I went over and I saw him with the girl in the car.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n<\/strong>
\nShortly after the murder, the director of the housing department, Thabo Matiwane, reportedly received a call from a private number warning that, if he continued to do certain things, he \u201cwould also get what Kondile got\u201d.<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/amabhungane.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/94x94.jpg\")
<\/a>The M&G<\/em> Centre for Investigative Journalism (amaBhungane) produced this story. All views are ours. See www.amabhungane.co.za <\/a> for our stories, activities and funding sources.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"