The Bojanala Platinum District Municipality in the North West said that arrests of other service providers who were involved in a syndicate that defrauded the Municipality more than R25 million between December 2018 and May 2019 are imminent.The Municipality has welcomed the recent apprehension of four of its former employees and one service provider, by the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (DPCI), also known as the Hawks on 17 March 2025.
The suspects include Patrick Pogisho Shikwane, Leslina Olga Ndlovu, the former municipality Chief Financial Officer; Patrick Tlhapi, the Chief Whip; Gontse Kekana, the secretary to the former municipal manager; and Mantsho Gloria Moremi.They’re facing charges ranging from fraud, money laundering, breach of the Municipal Finance Management Act and corruption and have since appeared before the Rustenburg Magistrates court and granted bail ranging between R5000 and R15 000 each.It’s alleged that in 2018, Ndlovu colluded with a service provider, who is still at large, to have her company, which was not on the database of the municipality’s service providers, to claim payments for services rendered to the municipality.
The CFO and the service provider allegedly used details of a registered service provider to claim for payments. However, the payments were paid into a bank account that was not on the municipality’s database.Speaking on YouFM Newshour, the Municipality spokesperson Thapelo Matebesi said they were informed that other arrests will follow soon hence their delay to release a statement in reaction to the initial arrest of their former employees. “These arrests were the outcome of an investigation led by the Hawks’ Serious Commercial Crime Investigation team, probing claims that they defrauded the Bojanala Platinum District Municipality of more than R25 million between December 2018 and May 2019. Among other things, investigations indicated that R2 million was transferred from the service provider’s bank account to the former CFO’s company account.The municipality wishes to express confidence in the law enforcement agencies which are the result of implementation of consequence management and opening of cases with SAPS and the HAWKS as resolved by the municipal council,” said Matebesi.
He expressed concern that the recent arrests may ruin a good reputation that the municipality has maintained over the years of clean, corrupt free governance.“Indeed, it’s a blow, it taints our good image after we recently acquired unqualified audit outcome by the Auditor General of South Africa which is an improvement from a disclaimer or qualified.We’re just one step away from clean audit, so indeed it threatens that strategic objective of us wanting to achieve a clean audit in the current financial year.That is why the municipality has implemented stringent measures including overhauling the Municipal Public Accounts Committee (MPAC), strengthened and capacitated it to ensure that it conducts oversight and guard against flouting of Municipal Financial Management Act,” explained Matebesi.
