Africa-Press – South-Africa. A Mpumalanga businessman has been sentenced to four years in prison for attempting to bribe a Special Investigating Unit (SIU) investigator to make a PPE corruption case against a Department of Public Works service provider go away.
The Mbombela Special Commercial Crimes Court sentenced Mpendulo Sipho Mapalala on Thursday.
He confessed to attempting to bribe the investigator, SIU spokesperson Kaizer Kganyago said.
National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) spokesperson Monica Nyuswa said the NPA secured a guilty plea from Mapalala in January.
He was arrested in a joint operation in August 2021 while delivering the R50 000 bribe to the investigator.
The SIU has been investigating the affairs of the Mpumalanga Department of Public Works, Roads, and Transport, under Proclamation R23 of 2020, which uncovered procurement irregularities, Kganyago added.
“The SIU investigations revealed that the department contracted a service provider in the 2017/18 financial year for pest control services. However, when the national state of disaster was declared, the department varied the contract to include disinfection services in the Ehlanzeni district. The disinfection services were for buildings owned and managed by the Mpumalanga provincial government in the said district. After the disinfection, the service provider received multiple payments amounting to R4.8 million,” Kganyago said.
The SIU investigation also revealed that immediately after the first payment was made to the service provider, they started transferring large amounts of money to various entities and people, including a Mpumalanga-based law firm and two department employees.
“The law firm bought a property to the value of R2.2 million and registered it in the name of a daughter of one of the two departmental officials,” Kganyago said.
“On 5 August 2021, the SIU interviewed Gugu Bulunga, a director of Mbombela Integrated and Thandolwani Transport and Properties. Bulunga was questioned about payments made to government officials and properties bought for government officials. Bulunga denied the allegations. Hours after the interview, Mapalala called an SIU investigator to declare that he is prepared to do anything to make the matter against Bulunga go away,” Kganyago said.
In his guilty plea statement, Mapalala said he wanted to help Bulunga “get out of the mess which caused her severe anxiety and the threat to her life”, Nyuswa said.
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