At the ceremony the father of Elizabeth Nhleko, the schoolgirl killed in the crossfire, was apparently fearless. He told mourners Vusumuzi was killed by the ANC, at which the dignitaries squirmed. Ordinary people were angry and made no attempt to hide it. Locals declared there was a stench about the ANC, and in subsequent by-elections in Nquthu the IFP trounced the ANC.
Simphiwe says the murder threatened to split his family. “It is very painful for us. The other day one of my sisters rebuked a family member for wearing an ANC T-shirt. She said, ‘How can you do this when they killed Vusumuzi?’ ”
Simphiwe shook his head slowly. His brother, he said, was murdered by “hyenas in the ANC. It is chilling. How will those children ever get over that trauma?”
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The security company whose name has cropped up in connection with the Vusumuzi case bears some closer attention. For many, Ocean Dawn is closely linked to Moffat Mosia, a politically connected 45-year-old who was found guilty in 1999 for the crime of kidnapping in Cofimvaba in the Eastern Cape. He was sentenced to 15 years and was paroled in 2009. His shadow looms over Ocean Dawn but he insists that he has no connection to the business or the security industry, and that the company is run by his sister. A company search revealed his links to five companies: Ocean Dawn (from which Mosia has resigned as a director); In For More Trading and Projects; Nkuto Plant and Civils; Matasha Projects; and Enduneni Contractors. According to Deeds Office data, he has properties in Nquthu, Ulundi and Umhlanga (his latest purchase, for R5 million, in 2018).
Ocean Dawn has also been involved in a prolonged court battle with a rival security company in Dundee, trying to secure the R1-million-a-month contract to provide municipal protection services in the town.
In 2018 Mosia shared the stage with deputy police minister Bongani Mkongi (who was among the last batch of Jacob Zuma’s cabinet appointees) and celebrated businessman Smanga Mabaso, who hosts the popular Tugela Ferry “Msinga Driftkhana” car event where contestants spin their vehicles around. A local told me that the deputy minister was escorted onto the stage by Ocean Dawn security as Mosia watched and Mabaso sprayed champagne over the crowds.
Mosia was also mentioned in an August 2019 case in the Estcourt magistrate’s court in which then Endumeni/Dundee mayor Siboniso Richard Mbatha, 31, appeared on charges of conspiracy to commit murder, along with fellow IFP councillor Mthembeni Majola and alleged hitman Xolani Makhathini. They were arrested in May that year after allegedly conspiring to murder former Dundee municipal council speaker Bongiwe Mbatha-Makhathini in 2018. At the time she, Mbatha and Majola were all members of the IFP.
She claimed that she and Moffat Mosia were targeted after the two had had discussions with Richard Mbatha at a Newcastle hotel. The upshot was that she was called to a meeting by Mbatha (they share the same surname but are not related) where the mayor did most of the talking. It related to a municipal security tender that Ocean Dawn was due to get in return for an R800,000 payment to the IFP. There are varying accounts of the story still to be fleshed out in court, but one is that there was unease over how the bribe was to be divvied up and none of the parties was happy, not least Bongiwe Mbatha-Makhathini. Insiders told me that relations between Mosia and the mayor had soured over money. Mbatha-Makhathini claimed she wanted no part of the bribe. Months later police tipped her off about a plot to assassinate her, and her fellow councillors were arrested.
Two weeks after their August 2019 court appearance in Estcourt, co-accused Mthembeni Majola and his driver were shot dead in an ambush outside town. The IFP in the meantime ditched Richard Mbatha as mayor but gave him a job in the Umzinyathi district municipality handling publicity. Mbatha-Makhathini subsequently left the IFP and joined the ANC.
Blood flows in the doctor’s town
The story I tell in this chapter of killings of prominent ANC members in Newcastle is much the same as those we have studied in Dundee and Nquthu. The power-mongering and corruption which lie behind the killings immobilise government. And one of the interesting features in Newcastle, which characterises many of the killings more broadly in KZN, is the use of hired hitmen. Their origins, either in the taxi industry or the private security industry, will become, as you will see, a major subject of this book.
* * *
Where to begin the wicked tale of Newcastle?
This is a story of extraordinary iniquity with an ensemble of unrivalled characters. But for the sake of simplicity, let’s start in 2019, when Eskom was about to turn the lights off in Newcastle over an unpaid debt. Why Eskom, tormented by its own state capture demons, chose to pick on Newcastle is neither here nor there. Newcastle, equidistant between Durban and Johannesburg, was once the poster child of the industrialised apartheid state. It seemed to flourish until about 2017, when things went south. Now it is largely written off as another basket-case municipality, facing ruin because of ANC cronyism.
In September 2019 my colleague Amanda Khoza and I spent a week there for New Frame, documenting the town’s travails. The municipality was teetering on the brink of collapse, and the blood of politicians seemed to stain the pavements. Newcastle’s litter- and pothole-free streets belied its deadly politics: at least three prominent ANC members had been killed there since 2016. And when we visited, the town’s 38-year-old mayor, medical doctor Ntuthuko Mahlaba, had just been in court for the 2016 assassination of colleague Wandile Ngubeni. Three months earlier, Mahlaba’s comrade Martin Sithole (and a witness in the case against him) was shot and killed a block away from Newcastle’s town hall.
Mahlaba’s case is representative of the vicious ANC factional battles fought over municipal spoils. His detractors depicted him as a villain while his supporters ardently proclaimed him to be a corruption-busting saviour.
Mahlaba, who was placed on special leave by the ANC for three months in 2019 as a result of the case, plans to sue the state for his arrest. It was a set-up to disgrace him, he said, to ensure he wasn’t elected mayor and, importantly, to keep money flowing to corrupt comrades. “Newcastle is taking serious financial strain because of problems that date back a long time,” he told me in an interview in his office. “Unless we deal with corruption and fraud, our people will continue to kill each other,” he said. But Mahlaba’s enemies said he has been regional ANC chair since 2013 and in a key position to influence things.
When we visited, Newcastle had debts amounting to about R1.3 billion and its income was less than its expenses. Ten years earlier the municipality had cash reserves of R248 million. At the time, Newcastle’s chief financial officer was Eduard le Roux, who had held the position for nine years. He was ousted and, according to reports, successfully overturned his unfair dismissal, but never went back to work. Instead, the man with twenty-five years of experience in municipal finance now works for the National Treasury, ironically helping to fix financially delinquent municipalities like Newcastle.
Soon after he left, the ANC installed young Afzul Rehman as mayor. Rehman was a media darling who was wont to boast about his money-saving innovations and beautiful wardrobe. The suave Rehman was heaped with praise for cutting costs and keeping the streets clean. He won KwaZulu-Natal Mayor of the Year award three times and, for a while, most locals were dazzled by him. He turned council meetings paperless, cut lunch allowances and pledged huge capital expenditure.
But then, a decade later, Rehman sold his multi-million-rand home in Newcastle and moved to Dubai, where he now owns a car dealership. Not long after his move the Newcastle Advertiser ran an exposé alleging that as mayor Rehman had redirected work to his comrades and his brother Riaz, who received a R2 million cellphone contract. The paper also alleged that the best mayor award was a sham determined by SMS votes cast by municipal staff sitting in an office and instructed to boost Rehman’s