Serial fraudster: Howard Mashaba claimed Deputy President Paul Mashatile and billionaire Patrice Motsepe would be at the opening of his new hotel, which is state property and thus falls under the portfolio of Public Works Minister Dean Macpherson.
Convicted fraudster Howard Mashaba has now demolished state property in Limpopo to build a hotel, and Public Works and Infrastructure Minister Dean Macpherson, according to well-placed sources, allegedly “failed” to act on when alerted to this.
Moreover, Deputy President Paul Mashatile’s office has sought legal advice and is in the process of approaching the State Security Agency (SSA) after Mashaba — who is the subject of multiple criminal prosecutions and a Special Investigations Unit (SIU) inquiry related to R34 million in “stolen” national lottery funds — allegedly forged a letter claiming that Mashatile would attend the hotel’s opening.
These revelations come on the back of an ongoing legal case against Mashaba, who was released on R5 000 bail last month for allegedly violating a court-ordered protection interdict granted by the Giyani magistrate’s court in favour of Rosinah Mashele.
Mashele, according to court documents the Mail & Guardian has seen, had a two-year lease — April 2023 to March 2025 — with the public works department and was allegedly violently evicted by Mashaba and people working under his command before he began building his hotel in July.
Mashaba has four previous convictions, including one for fraud in 2008. His last conviction was in April for failing to disclose his criminal records when he applied for bail last year on a separate case of defrauding Absa by getting a home loan with allegedly forged documents. The Absa case is before the Johannesburg specialised commercial crimes court, as is another prosecution in the same venue for a separate fraud matter.
The M&G has also seen a July charge against Mashaba opened with the Limpopo police’s anti-corruption unit in Polokwane. In July 2019, he received a contempt of court conviction for breaching a Johannesburg high court order to pay Mercedes Benz South Africa about R22 million for 11 buses he bought for his Limpopo transport business.
A deed search by the M&G this week confirmed that the property Mashele rented — where she lived with her son, daughter, niece, two nephews, and grandson, according to the court documents — belonged to the state and is in the Giyani suburb of Kremetart.
Mashaba’s name does not appear on the deed search as having owned or bought the property. Despite not possessing a title deed for the property, by his own admission in his legal filings, Mashaba argued in court papers that he bought the state asset in 2017 and registered it in his father’s name.
Sources in the public works department claimed that Minister Dean Macpherson was aware of the scandal, but had not acted on it because, one insider said, the minister “was busy concentrating on Cape Town issues”.
“The minister failed to act on Mashaba despite knowing about the vandalism of a state asset by a convicted criminal. If this property was in the Western Cape, I am sure the minister would have jumped and gone to court,” said the source, who wanted to remain anonymous.
The insider was alluding to Macpherson’s 20 September statement welcoming the Western Cape high court’s ruling evicting the illegal occupants of the Castle of Good Hope, in which the minister asserted that “state assets should be looked after and be used for [the] public good”.
“The occupation and decay of state buildings nationwide create issues for the municipalities by attracting crime and grime which we have also seen at the Castle of Good Hope,” Macpherson added.
Another source said provincial departmental officials were supposed to attend to Mashele’s complaints, but that had not happened. “Basically, the department failed not only a civilian but also someone who was a good tenant and had not once missed rental payments. She lived with her dependents and we failed all of them,” the official stressed.
The M&G sent questions to ministerial spokesperson James de Villiers, who acknowledged the query on Monday and promised to respond. The questions included information about the civil and criminal cases against Mashaba related to his alleged hijacking of state property, including its location. De Villiers had not responded to the M&G by the time of publication.
In July, a protection order was granted against Mashaba for what Limpopo police said was the “violent” removal of Mashele — who works for the South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) — from her leased house.
In her magistrate’s court affidavit, Mashele detailed her ordeal prior to being removed from the house. This included her lights being switched off, and bricks and building sand dumped in front of the property that blocked her and her family from leaving the house.
“On the 5th of July 2024, I did not go out of the house as the gate was blocked by the load of building sand, and could not even go to work or go and buy bread. We also did not cook as there was no electricity,” Mashele stated.
She attached her signed lease agreement with the public works department and her rental payments, adding that Mashaba told her she should take that up with the state because “the house belongs to him and [he] does not owe me anything — I must just vacate the house”.
She added that the public works department should be called to testify because the property belongs to the state. But the department did not avail itself to the court. Mashele was granted the protection order without the department’s assistance.
Mashaba, responding to the allegations, said Mashele was not “a legal tenant” of the property, adding that despite the Sassa official signing a lease agreement, he “disputed the validity of such a lease agreement”.
“I deny that the property in question belongs to the department of public works. I am in the process of obtaining a title deed for the said house and other properties I bought from the department of public works,” he said.
Meanwhile, the M&G has seen internal notes, dated July 2024, from Mashatile’s office declining an invitation from Mashaba for the deputy president to attend the launch of the under-construction Mafemani Hotel and a “business summit” in Giyani.
The notes were by Melene Rossouw, the chief director of personal support and advisory services in the deputy president’s office.
But another letter with Rossouw’s signature, dated 25 July 2024, is allegedly being circulated by Mashaba, claiming that Mashatile will attend the Mafemani Hotel’s opening.
“Thank you once again for this honour. We look forward to the event and the valuable conversations it promises,” reads the letter.
The M&G has also seen a video of Mashaba asserting that Mashatile as well as billionaire business person Patrice Motsepe will attend.
“On 19 October, we will be opening this hotel and rubbing shoulders with the likes of Motsepe and Paul Mashatile.
“It’s going to be a great event,” Mashaba states in the video, speaking in Xitsonga.
The fraudster is known to ingratiate himself with top politicians, having hosted former president Jacob Zuma, who also leads the 10-month-old uMkhonto weSizwe party, in March at Mashaba’s Xilumani Hotel in Giyani ahead of the May national and provincial elections.
Speaking to the M&G this week, Keith Khoza, the acting spokesperson for Mashatile, also rejected the alleged forged letter, adding: “I want to confirm that the deputy president did not confirm attendance of the event referred to.”
Sources in Mashatile’s office told the M&G that officials would approach the SSA “to investigate this fraud”, and have sought legal counsel because the letter purporting to state that the deputy president would attend Mashaba’s grand hotel opening “was manipulated by someone”.
This could add to Mashaba’s woes because SIU spokesperson Kaizer Kganyago — while not detailing much about the inquiry into the alleged defrauding of the National Lotteries Commission of more than R34.4 million — confirmed the ongoing investigation in March, saying the unit would communicate the outcomes “as and when we are done with that part of the investigation”.