Last month, the M&G reported that the state would use emails for Kodwa’s expected prosecution. File photo
Sports, Arts and Culture Minister Zizi Kodwa is expected to appear in court on 5 June on corruption and money laundering charges for more than R1.6 million in alleged bribes he received.
The Mail & Guardian has established that the state will be focusing on contracts worth around R464 million that information technology and software company EOH Holdings received from the City of Johannesburg in 2016 to upgrade and maintain the metro’s software systems.
According to evidence presented at the State Capture Commission of Inquiry in 2021, the City of Johannesburg advertised a software support tender in November 2015 but withdrew it in March 2016, with EOH receiving an extension to its 2012 contract for systems support valued at R64 million. Chief Justice Raymond Zondo chaired the inquiry.
Three months later, ahead of the August 2016 local government elections, EOH scored a R404 million contract with the city to upgrade its systems, and investigators believe that “pressure” exerted by Kodwa and the now-deceased Johannesburg mayor Geoff Makhubo paved the way for the company to get substantial tenders.
Makhubo and the ANC, which the late mayor was the Johannesburg treasurer of in 2015 and 2016, allegedly received around R11 million in “donations” from EOH in what the state alleges were bribes.
Several sources close to the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) informed the M&G that Kodwa will be charged alongside business executive Jehan Mackay, who allegedly doled out cash and other benefits to the minister so that EOH could score lucrative state contracts.
Mackay is a former executive at EOH.
In the same month that the city advertised the initial contract in November 2015, Kodwa sent Mackay an email from a car dealership showing that the minister owed money on a vehicle he purchased on credit.
Zondo’s commission report found that Mackay gifted Kodwa cash and other benefits between March 2015 and February 2016.
At the time, Kodwa was the ANC’s national spokesperson and a member of its national executive committee, the party’s highest decision-making structure in between its five-yearly elective conferences.
Kodwa — according to the May 2021 testimony from Steven Powell, the managing director of ENSafrica Forensic — received R50 000 from Mackay’s bank account to settle the vehicle debt, three days after the minister had forwarded the email.
Last month, the M&G reported that the state would use emails for Kodwa’s expected prosecution.
“He [Mackay] seems to help Mr Kodwa out at times when Mr Kodwa’s balance was very low,” Powell had testified.
The M&G learned that lawyers representing the expected accused have tried negotiating with the Investigating Directorate (ID) to postpone the enrolment of the case next Wednesday pending a police investigation into whether the cancellation of the November 2015 tender was due to pressure Kodwa “exerted”, or that the tender specifications were inadequate.
However, the negotiations have seemingly failed and lawyers have been informed to present their clients at the Johannesburg specialised commercial crimes court, sitting in Palm Ridge in Katlehong, for the enrollment of charges.
The ID, which is heading the inquiry and prosecution of Kodwa, is an NPA division specialising in complex graft cases.
The ID is also prosecuting the former speaker of the National Assembly, Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, who faces 12 corruption counts and one of money laundering for R4.5 million in alleged bribes she received between December 2016 and July 2019 from a contractor when she was the minister of defence and military veterans.
Mapisa-Nqakula returns to the Pretoria magistrate’s court on 6 June.
During his state capture commission testimony in June 2021, Kodwa admitted to receiving a R1 million “loan” from his “friend” Mackay, using R890 000 of that to buy a Jeep in June 2015.
“I confirm that this was a loan from my friend, and no strings attached. I obtained it at a time of financial difficulty and I would not have been able to secure a bank loan,” Kodwa told the state capture commission.
More than R650 000, according to the commission’s findings, was given to Kodwa by Mackay in the form of luxury stays in upmarket Cape Town homes.
The minister did not respond to the M&G’s requests for comment.
ID spokesperson Henry Mamothame referred all questions to advocate Mthunzi Mhaga, the NPA national spokesperson. Mhaga said Phindi Mjonondwane, the authority’s Gauteng spokesperson, would answer.
Mjonondwane referred questions to the Hawks, whose national spokesperson, Colonel Katlego Mogale, told the M&G that the NPA was responsible for responses.
“We have [Hawks] members seconded at the ID, but we do not speak on those matters,” Mogale said.