Seven suspects – including local government officials and a former spokesperson for the African Nation Congress (ANC) – have been charged with fraud by a South African court.
The defendants appeared in court following an investigation into a 27 million rand (£1.2 million; $1.6 million) government tender.
The investigation revealed that the provincial government in Gauteng signed a contract with a company called Enviro-Mobi for waste management services five years ago.
Enviro-Mobi did not disclose its links to ex-ANC spokesperson Pule Mabe, who was an MP at the time, a police statement said.
The suspects were not asked to enter pleas, but Mabe and his wife denied the charges.
The court hearing took place on Wednesday after the seven suspects surrendered to South Africa’s elite police unit, the Hawks.
In addition to Mabe and his wife, the defendants also included two Guateng provincial government executives.
All seven suspects were granted bail during the hearing, which took place in Ekurhuleni, a municipality just east of the city of Johannesburg.
Outside the courthouse, Mabe told local media that he is stepping down from the ANC executive committee but “not because he is guilty”.
The contract in question stipulated that Enviro-Mobi was to receive advance payments and that the money could only be handed over to the company after some of the work had been completed, police spokesman Thandi Mbambo said.
However, the Hawks’ investigation found that Gauteng’s Department of Agriculture paid Enviro-Mobi R25 million for 200 vehicles, even though the goods were “still in the possession of the service provider”.
It is not the first time that Mabe, who was ANC spokesperson from 2018 to 2023, has been accused of corruption.
He and two others were arrested in 2013 over allegations that he had defrauded the South African Social Security Administration (Sassa). The trio were later acquitted of all charges.
And in 2017, Mabe was fined after a parliamentary committee found he had profited from a contract with the state-owned railway company.
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