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- Mosebenzi Zwane has denied ordering advance payments from the Free State’s housing funds.
- Zwane said he also did not know anything about a payment to former Prime Minister Ace Magashule’s office by a company run by a man with whom Magushule had separate business deals.
- Zwane said this during his return to the Zondo State Capture Commission, which is trying to get to the bottom of the payments.
Mosebenzi Zwane was adamant that it had nothing to do with the controversial advance of almost R500 million to select housing contractors who did not have to submit offers for the job when he was the MEC of Human Settlements in the Free State.
Zwane said he also knew nothing about a payment to former Prime Minister Ace Magashule’s office from a company that had been paid.
He also denied having threatened the department head if he did not sign the prepayment plan, or that he had given the department head a list of companies that should be paid.
“I had never dealt with him or done anything to indicate the fact that I was a monster in that department,” Zwane said.
He said this during the Judicial Investigation on the complaints of state capture, corruption and fraud in the public sector, including the organs of the State.
He also denied being informed of concerns about the prepayment plan, knowingly forcing someone to do something, or doing something illegal.
He said his role was a supervisory role.
The commission is trying to get to the bottom of what happened with around R500 million in advance payments for a R1.4 billion housing project, for which little was provided, and the acquisition processes were allegedly scoffed at.
The Free State government had a former department head, Mpho Mokoena, who previously testified that after telling Zwane that his idea of an advance payment to contractors was illegal and that contractors could not be paid without the work being done , Zwane said he should quit if he did. he did not want to implement his plan.
Allegations of threats
He said Zwane threatened him that the bank would take away his house and that his children would be taken out of school.
In 2010 and 2011 people in the Free State were supposed to get houses, but many were not built. The commission had heard that there was no paperwork for the project and that Zwane would decide who would get the job. More than 100 contractors were paid. The money was spent when the Free State government was at risk of losing unspent money.
READ | It was never about the money, but about the Free State people, Zwane tells the Zondo commission
Zwane said that he had simply raised the possibility of advance payments to help contractors in the province, and that the intention was only to get opinions on it and then discuss it. It was not an instruction to go through with it.
He said he did not know a man named Blackie Seoe, a co-director of a firm Sambal Investments, of which Magashule was also a director.
I only knew of Seoe, who is now dead, as a sports and boxing enthusiast in the Free State.
He did not know that R7 million of the R431 million advance payment made to Seoe’s separate construction-related company, Rob’s Bricks, flowed back from a related company Rob’s Holdings to an account in the prime minister’s office. The payment was acknowledged by Magashule’s personal assistant, Moroadi Cholota.
He also said that although he had met Rochelle Els, a member of a company “close” to Magashule, he had nothing to do with claims that payments to his business for housing work were expedited.
Zwane’s evidence ended Friday afternoon, and in a moment of bonhomia he thanked the commission for its work and said that while he hoped he would not have to return during the Christmas holidays, he would do so if necessary.
