Controversial Nelspruit mayor Jeri Ngomane seems to have been an unusually considerate companion — two of his ”wives” won tenders with his council totalling almost R2-million while he was in charge.
Ngomane this week denied having any relationship with the two women.
The Mail & Guardian has also established that another of Ngomane’s wives — a white woman, Sanet de Klerk — was the financial manager of a company that won a R1-million contract with the council during his mayorship.
In addition, a KPMG forensic audit found Ngomane used council computers to bill Mpumalanga’s department of safety and security for work done by a woman he confirms really is his wife, Gugu Mkhwatshwa.
Ngomane is mayor of Enhlanzeni District Municipality, Mpumalanga’s second-largest local authority, encompassing provincial capital Nelspruit, Barberton, Thaba Cheu (formerly Lydenburg) and Nkomazi. He was elected to the position after the 2000 municipal elections.
In September 2002 Drum magazine reported he had told Mkhatshwa that ”she must expect I’ll have many wives because I’m a Swazi prince and an is’thembu man [polygamist].”
At the time he had one child by Mkhatshwa, two from De Klerk’s previous marriage and six children from previous relationships, according to Drum.
Last week Mpumalanga local government minister Jabu Mahlangu took effective control of the Enhlanzeni municipality, suspending its manager and deputy manager, after the KPMG investigation revealed widespread irregularities.
The audit report made the startling revelation that between January 2000 and January this year payments worth more than R30-million had been made to ”entities in which councillors/officials hold direct/indirect interests”.
Documents in the M&G’s possession show that Ngomane’s ”wives”, Millicent Sibiya and Nomsa Nxumalo, both won sizeable contracts from the council last year while he was mayor.
Sibiya’s company, Vuthela Africa Development, landed a contract to build 25 houses in Goba, Nelspruit, worth about R575 000. Multilayer Trading 929 CC, registered in Nxumalo’s name, won council fencing and electrification contracts worth R1,3-million, also last year.
Ngomane denied Sibiya and Nxumalo were his wives, or that he had any relationship with them. Sibiya also denied having a relationship with Ngomane. ”I am a single woman, but I refuse to discuss my private life with the media,” she said.
But officials at the Enhlanzeni municipality office said the fact that Ngomane had three ”wives” was public knowledge.
”If there is no relationship, why does Nxumalo drive the mayor’s BMW?” one council official asked.
On March 17 this year an e-mail was circulated to staff by Beverley Starr, the municipal manager’s PA, congratulating the mayor on the birth of his child to Nxumalo. The e-mail, which the M&G has seen, reads: ”Congrads [sic] to the Executive Mayor and his wife, Nomsa, on the birth of their son ZIZWE, who was born on March 12 2004.”
In reply to the congratulatory e-mail, Ngomane announced: ”You will probably be congratulating me very, very soon on another score …” Staff took this as a reference to the heavily pregnant Sibiya.
Drum reported that De Klerk had moved into Ngomane’s large family home in Nelspruit’s upmarket West Acres suburb after marrying him in 2002. De Klerk worked for Sisonke, a land surveying company that won a R1-million contract from the council last year.
This week De Klerk said she and Ngomane ”were never married; we were just involved”. Sisonke director Harrington Dhlamini said his company had landed the contract ”after the relationship between Ngomane and De Klerk ended”.
KPMG also found that while Ngomane was mayor the council paid R3,3-million to a company in which he had an interest, Endecon Ubuntu. It paid the company a further R6,8-million after he resigned his directorship and disposed of his shareholding in April 2002.
Mpumalanga’s local government minister, Jabu Mahlangu, last week suspended the council’s municipal manager Thoko Mashiane, her deputy Nelson Mkhatshwa and the chief financial officer Gerhard Landman in response to the KPMG report. But Ngomane was spared.
Mahlangu’s spokesperson Simpiwe Kunene said that, in terms of the Systems Act, the provincial minister had no authority to act against either councillors or the council. It was for this reason that Ngomane and his mayoral committee — who had the power to appoint contractors — had retained their jobs despite KPMGs harsh judgement on their stewardship of council affairs.
KPMG also revealed that the council had approved the purchase of an office building for R10-million, when the building was worth half that amount.
It found that the mayoral committee ignored legal opinion and went ahead with the appointment of a contractor for road works despite the flawed award of the contract. Ngomane called for quotations after the contract had already been dished out to a company called Mpuma Roads.
Strange deals
Why did Nelspruit businessman Sizwe Zulu deposit R24 000 in Mayor Jeri Ngomane’s bank account after winning contracts worth R5,7-million to build or upgrade three local stadiums?
The mayor insists the payments were for a VW microbus. But Zulu told the Mail & Guardian that, six months after the final payment, he had not yet received the vehicle.
The M&G has copies of two deposit slips showing Zulu paid R9 000 and R15 000 into Ngomane’s Absa bank account in October and December respectively last year.
According to a council resolution, the contract awarded to Zulu’s company, Owethu Projects, was terminated in December last year and reinstated a month later. A letter from the council to Zulu, also in the M&G’s possession, says the mayoral committee cancelled the contract because of ”fraudulent documents”.
Zulu said it had been reinstated after he ”made presentations to the council giving his side of the story”.
However, he refused to say why he had paid R40 000 to the mayor. ”I think that is a question that can best be answered by the mayor,” he said.
In an interview, Ngomane said the payments were ”for the redemption of an outstanding balance” on a VW Microbus he had sold to Zulu. Contacted again, Zulu confirmed Ngomane’s version of events.
But he said he had not yet taken delivery of the vehicle, even though six months had passed since the payment of his last instalment on it.
Curiously, Zulu said the two men had agreed the minibus would be delivered once the final instalment was paid.
”As you can see, I am a patient man,” Zulu said.