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Daily Maverick
11 hours ago
- Business
- Daily Maverick
Nkabane reveals names of panellists who oversaw controversial Seta board appointments
After weeks of mounting pressure, Higher Education Minister Nobuhle Nkabane has released the list of panellists who assisted her with the appointments of 21 Seta board chairpersons — several of whom are linked to ANC politicians. Higher Education Minister Nobuhle Nkabane initially refused to disclose the names of the independent panel responsible for appointing the chairpersons of 21 Sector Education and Training Authority (Seta) boards. Among the board chairpersons were people connected to the ANC, including Gwede Mantashe's son, Buyambo Mantashe, former KwaZulu-Natal premier Nomusa Dube-Ncube and ex-ANC KZN provincial deputy chairperson Mike Mabuyakhulu. All these appointments were withdrawn by Nkabane after a public outcry. Nkabane revealed the names after requests from frustrated members of the parliamentary committee on higher education. Independent panel The long-awaited names of the independent panel established by the Nkabane include advocate Terry Motau SC, who conducted investigative work into the collapse of VBS Mutual Bank, where he was commissioned by the South African Reserve Bank to lead a forensic probe. His findings — summarised in the 2018 report, The Great Bank Heist — detail how about R1.8-billion was misappropriated, implicating more than 50 individuals in high-level fraud. Motau has also contributed to the Investigating Directorate under the National Prosecuting Authority and to the Zondo commission as an investigator. Motau did not attend any of the panel's meetings. Another member is Asisipho Solani, who is an adviser to Nkabane and usually accompanies the minister to oversight and committee meetings. Solani was a South African Students Congress leader at the University of the Western Cape and is a lecturer at the University of South Africa. Also part of the panel is Nelisiwe Semane, who has been chief of staff in Nkabane's office since September 2024, according to her LinkedIn profile. The other two members are deputy director-general for corporate services in the Department of Higher Education and Training Rhulani Ngwenya and chief director for Seta coordination Mabuza Ngubane. During a parliamentary committee meeting early this month, Ngwenya was part of Nkabane's team that came under the scrutiny of MP Sihle Lonzi. These were the five members who were responsible for assisting Nkabane in making decisions on the Seta boards' chairpersons. During a parliamentary committee meeting, it was revealed that there had been no vetting to ensure that these panel members were suitable. Missed deadline Nkabane was given until 12 June 2025 to submit the names to the committee, but she missed the deadline due to her concerns over the panellists' rights to privacy. Although she asked for an extension until 30 June, she has now submitted the names. Higher Education spokesperson Camagwini Mavovana told Daily Maverick that Nkabane 'is determined to ensure that Sector Education and Training Authorities and all institutions under the Department of Higher Education and Training deliver tangible outcomes, empowering young people and addressing unemployment.' The Seta board appointments caused chaos at the parliamentary committee meeting on 14 May and 2 June 2025, leading to the eviction of the EFF's Sihle Lonzi after he questioned Department of Higher Education and Training Director-General Dr Nkosinathi Sishi, and called the Seta board appointments 'corrupt'. Chairperson of the committee Tebogo Letsie told Daily Maverick, 'We're very happy, as the committee, that she has furnished us with the names. We had not yet discussed whether we were going to agree to give her the extension to 30 June.' Despite Nkabane submitting the names, the Democratic Alliance's Karabo Khakhau will refer Nkabane to the ethics committee for misleading the committee, because she had said that all the panellists were independent. The committee will meet tomorrow to discuss whether to call the minister to appear before it. A statement released by the the chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Higher Education on Wednesday stated that 'After reviewing the letter submitted by the Minister of Higher Education, the Portfolio Committee on Higher Education has expressed concern that it was misled about the composition of the panel responsible for recommending appointments to the boards of Sector Education and Training Authorities (SETAs). Members of the Committee said the information provided through the letter does not reflect the independence initially claimed and that its raises serious questions about the transparency and integrity of the appointment process.' The statement went on to say that 'Committee members feel misled by previous representations made regarding the independence of the panel and the integrity of the appointment process. In particular, the Committee finds the redaction or censoring of some panel member names highly irregular and unacceptable. Furthermore, the committee is alarmed by the revelation in the Minister's letter that the purported Chairperson of the panel did not attend any of its meetings raising further questions about who chaired the panel meetings and oversaw the selection of candidates for SETA boards.' DM
Daily Maverick
07-05-2025
- Business
- Daily Maverick
KwaZulu-Natal water utility slapped with costs order in dead rabbit case
It's a helluva tale, involving claims, counter-claims, a dead rabbit, a bullet, Chinese 'heavies', ChatGPT, CCTV footage and the flip-flopping construction tycoon Stephen Lu. Some folks at the parastatal uMngeni-uThukela Water (UUW) might say there's more to the story of a dead rabbit and a flip-flopping Chinese construction tycoon, but this didn't stop a high court judge from giving the water utility a snotklap on Wednesday. As is typical with legal cases, it's complicated. An attempt by UUW to reverse an earlier court order relating to a R7-billion tender was not deemed urgent by KZN High Court Judge Sidwell Mngadi. The judge was unimpressed with UUW's approach and slapped the water utility with punitive costs for abusing court processes. Here's a quick recap of the legal proceedings and the poor rabbit. Last week, we reported how China State Construction Engineering Corporation South Africa (CSCEC) hauled UUW to court over the water tender. It's a helluva tale, involving claims, counter-claims, the dead rabbit, a bullet, Chinese 'heavies', ChatGPT, CCTV footage and the flip-flopping construction tycoon Stephen Lu. CSCEC is reputedly the biggest construction company in the world and was unhappy that its bid to build a water treatment plant in KwaZulu-Natal (in a joint venture with Lu's company, Base Major Construction) was rejected. The CSCEC-Base Major JV bid was R1.8-billion cheaper than the winning R7-billion bid, headed by South Africa's Icon Construction. The case surfaced in February when CSCEC took UUW to the KZN High Court in Pietermaritzburg to interdict UUW from taking steps to award the tender, saying it had been unfairly treated. That court action continued in March, when a consent order between the parties agreed to put the tender on hold, pending a final court determination at a later date. A host of issues In the meantime, UUW had to provide a record of the tender decision. Later, lawyers for both sides haggled over a host of issues. Then, late last week, UUW made an urgent application to the court to rescind the March consent order, alleging that Base Major didn't support the legal proceedings and lawyers acting for the company did not have power of attorney. UUW said it had discovered that a dead rabbit was delivered to Lu, his colleague found a bullet in an envelope on his car, and Base Major directors were intimidated by CSCEC and forced to sign a company resolution in March saying they supported legal action against UUW. Lu said Base Major didn't want to join the action, but CSCEC strong-armed them into it — a claim CSCEC CEO Chao Wang vehemently denied. Wang said CSCEC had nothing to do with the rabbit, and that Lu was old and slow and misunderstood an incident as a kidnapping. The essence of what was before Judge Mngadi last week was whether or not UUW's application was urgent. Before the judge could rule, lawyers for CSCEC also brought an urgent application to court on Wednesday, 7 May, attempting to prove beyond doubt that they had power of attorney by producing an affidavit from Lu disavowing earlier statements that he was threatened. This was in response to UUW's lawyers asking in court last week: 'Where is Mr Lu?' Well, CSCEC lawyers said, on 5 May, Lu deposed to an affidavit saying he willingly withdrew a criminal complaint relating to threats against him and confirming he voluntarily signed a Base Major resolution supporting the legal review application of the losing tender. This urgent application relating to power of attorney was also struck off as not urgent. However, Judge Mngadi didn't buy UUW's story. He said there was nothing to show that Lu's co-directors at Base Major didn't support the case against UUW. And, while Lu claimed he was forced into signing the resolution, witnesses said he signed it 'freely and voluntarily'. The judge went through a chronology of events from Lu's reluctance to support the case against UUW on 19 March, through statements relating to duress, to the company resolution. 'Parallel process' 'In my view, there is nothing showing that there was anything untoward in the resolution,' said Judge Mngadi. He said last week's court bid by UUW was 'a parallel process' that sought to scupper the legal review of the tender, 'by seeking contradictory relief in an urgent application' (relating to whether CSCEC's attorneys had the authority to act). There was no reason why the issue could not be raised in the review. It was not urgent, said the judge, and struck it off the roll with a punitive costs order, saying it was an abuse of court process. Lawyers for UUW said the issue of power of attorney still had to be resolved by the court. They said they were taking urgent instructions from UUW regarding the way forward. Lawyers for CSCEC said while the issue of authority could still be revived by UWW (on a non-urgent basis), they were adamant they had authority — provided by Lu's 5 May affidavit. They said the upshot of Judge Mngadi's ruling was that UUW was still bound by the consent order of March: it cannot award the tender until arguments have been heard in court. UUW was meant to have furnished answering affidavits in that matter by 30 April and had yet to do so. The interests of justice, CSCEC's lawyers said, required that this evidence be admitted so that the review (concerning R7-billion of taxpayers' money and water provision to KZN residents) 'can be resolved expeditiously'. DM
Daily Maverick
02-05-2025
- Business
- Daily Maverick
A dead rabbit, a bullet and a bot at the centre of KZN's R7bn water tender
China State Construction Engineering Corporation South Africa (CSC) has hauled parastatal uMngeni-uThukela Water (UUW) to court over a water tender dispute that appears to have turned ugly. A bloody, dead rabbit, a bullet in an envelope, eight Chinese 'heavies' and ChatGPT are at the centre of a disputed R7-billion tender for the construction of a water plant in KwaZulu-Natal. These details emerged in the Pietermaritzburg High Court this week. The case surfaced in February when CSC hauled parastatal UUW to court. In October 2024, CSC lost a bid to build the waterworks even though its joint venture with another Chinese-owned company, Base Major, was R1.8-billion cheaper than the winning bid by South Africa's (SA's) Icon Construction. CSC is reputedly the biggest construction company in the world, involved in projects in 100 countries, according to its website. In 2009, CSC was blacklisted by the World Bank for collusive practices in the Philippines. CSC South Africa is involved in a host of projects, including the construction of sections of the N3 between Durban and Pietermaritzburg. In February, CSC brought an application in the Pietermaritzburg High Court to interdict UUW from taking steps to award the waterworks tender. CSC claimed that UUW irrationally and unreasonably regarded it as non-compliant based on a lack of technical experience and issues related to translating documents from Chinese, among other issues. A consent order The February court action continued in March, where a consent order between the parties agreed that the tender would be put on hold, pending a final court determination at a later date. In terms of the order, UUW had to provide a record of the tender decision, and deadlines were set for the submission of affidavits. Later, in correspondence, lawyers argued about the disclosure of confidential price-sensitive information and AI-generated 'case law' that UUW reportedly relied on to make the tender award. Late last week, UUW applied to the court to rescind the March agreement because it alleged the court order was perpetuated by fraud. UUW said Base Major did not support the legal proceedings. UUW is represented by Andile Khoza, a director at the law firm Strauss Daly, who made an extraordinary affidavit motivating his argument ahead of this week's court proceedings. He said Base Major company bosses were intimidated into joining the court action and were threatened with death by CSC employees if they didn't. Khoza said in an affidavit deposed by CSC's Chao Wang he claimed he was authorised to bring the application against UUW on behalf of his company and Base Major, using attorney Adine Abro. But, Khoza said, on 16 March, he received a letter from advocate Alistair Glendinning, who acted for Base Major, saying that it was unaware of the legal proceedings until company bosses read about them in a Sunday newspaper. Glendinning was asked to secure a meeting with CSC to find out about the case because Base Major was a majority shareholder in the joint venture and had no part in launching legal proceedings. Glendinning didn't get a reply from CSC, so his attorneys got hold of Abro, asking on what authority she acted for Base Major. She sent correspondence from Base Major, including a company resolution. The correspondence said the CEO of Base Major, Stephen Jinpu Lu, had evaluated legal proceedings and supported CSC along with the other directors, Feng Sun and Amanda Lauren-Soo. A dead rabbit Thereafter, Khoza says, his client received information to the effect that the resolution was signed under duress. Khoza followed up on this and established that Lu is the complainant in an intimidation case registered with Midrand SAPS. Khoza said while he had no personal knowledge of the facts, he had sworn statements, including from Lu (dated 23 March and 26 March); Sun (8 April); and from a Midrand SAPS detective (24 April). According to Lu's statement on 23 March, 'two days before the purported Base Major resolution' he was at home at Waterfall Estate in Gauteng and received a missed call and then a text saying, 'Your delivery is at the gate.' He received a message from the security gate confirming the delivery. At the gate, he found a red and white bag bearing his name and cell number. 'When he opened the package, he found a photo of his car and a note reading 'Mr Stephen Lu enjoy it'. 'When he opened the package, he found blood and a dead rabbit.' He notified security and made a report to the police. Khoza said a Midrand SAPS detective viewed security CCTV footage from Waterfall Valley Estate and established that the vehicle that dropped the dead rabbit at Lu's house was registered to China State Construction. The next day, Lu received a call from his manager Feng Sun who said 'the construction guys' were at his home. Shortly after, both Sun and eight 'construction guys' arrived. They were told: 'If we don't sign, they will kill us or show us.' Lu contacted SAPS. Two policemen arrived but were 'overpowered by the eight Chinese', two of whom were CSC managers. 'We were forced to sign without our consent.' Lu protested, saying that they had lost the tender and should 'leave it at that', but he was 'held hostage'. Khoza provided a statement from Feng Sun relating to an event on 1 April when Sun was shopping at Carlswald Lifestyle Centre and on returning to his car, noticed a white envelope on his windscreen. Inside the envelope, he found a single bullet, and asked the police to investigate. AI's scrambled gobbledygook In a replying affidavit, CSC's Chao Wang accused UUW of trying to keep hidden from public scrutiny an opinion offered by UUW's attorney Garnet Ngubane that informed the water utility's decision to award the tender. The opinion was based on three 'reported cases' that were the product of 'AI hallucination …scrambled gobbledygook generated by ChatGPT or something similar.' In a desperate bid to avoid having to answer for this, UUW had launched its application, though, Wang said the water utility's CEO, Sandile Mkhize, would still have to answer to Parliament how he awarded a tender against the recommendation of UUW's appeal tribunal. UUW was silent, he said, on how it got sight of the harassment affidavits. He said a policeman at Waterfall asked Lu if he was signing under duress. He said no. 'The people at the scene shook hands, and we all left the scene at the same time,' Wang says, quoting policeman Sello Mabula. Wang quotes an affidavit signed by Feng Sun (dated 27 April) that denies he was ever kidnapped or that he or other Base Major directors were forced to sign a resolution or threatened by CSC. He said CSC and Base Major had a long-standing, mutually beneficial relationship dating back to 2022, when they started working together in a joint venture on the N3 upgrade near Pietermaritzburg. Wang said this project and another was in a 70/30 split, the majority being held by Base Major. 'Often slow' in decisions Wang said Lu is a 75-year-old Chinese national who has lived in South Africa for 25 years and is a director of Base Major. But, Wang said Lu was 'not overly involved in day-to-day management and perhaps because of this, he is often slow in making decisions'. Wang said he had no knowledge of or role in the 'bizarre' rabbit incident and emphatically denied that CSC had anything to do with it. Lu had briefed Glendinning, but by March 24 had amicably agreed to support the court action against UUW. Afterwards, Wang said he went to Sun's house and told him Lu would support the action and abide by court deadlines. They drew up the company resolution and called Lu, and told him they would bring it over for a signature. 'Mr Lu misunderstood Mr Sun's statement and formed the impression that Mr Sun had been kidnapped. He immediately contacted the SAPS.' Wang said they drove to Lu's house at Waterfall Estate, but Lu met them at the gate house and said he preferred to sign the resolution the next day. Police at the scene confirmed there was no sign of any attempted kidnapping, intimidation or any other aggressive or unlawful behaviour. Wang said he knows Sun received a bullet in an envelope, but this was no basis to infer he signed a company resolution under duress. UUW had put forward 'an entirely fabricated story' that did not merit urgent court action to rescind the March agreement between UUW and CSC to suspend the tender subject to court review. In court this week Advocate Jean Meiring for CSC said in court this week that the application was a perverse attempt to suppress egregious conduct at UUW, where the utility was playing fast and loose with state money. Advocate Alan Lamplough for UUW said no parties should be able to file further affidavits until the issue of Abro's power of attorney was resolved. Judge Sidwell Mngadi said the effect of the relief UUW sought was substantial — it would set aside the earlier March order. He said objections around power of attorney could have been handled separately. Lamplough argued that the existing order relied on Abro's power of attorney, which was in question. Meiring said there was no dispute over Abro's power of attorney and UUW had rushed to court to avoid answering questions related to AI-generated legal opinions. UUW was running roughshod over the rules. Base Major was fully behind CSC's legal battle. Lamplough said the issues at stake were 'extraordinary and grave'. Lu received a dead rabbit and said he was threatened; this evidence couldn't be ignored, he said. Meiring said police affidavits from the Waterfall meeting where the Chinese construction workers met Lu showed it was amicable. Lamplough disagreed, adding: 'Where is Mr Lu now?' Mngadi reserved judgment. DM
