ANC employee held for heist

Errol Velile Present‚ the Luthuli House employee who was fired by the ANC yesterday after he was arrested and appeared in court for his alleged involvement in a cash-in-transit heist in Soweto‚ is no stranger to controversy.

In February 2017‚ the Sunday Times linked him to a controversial farm deal in Limpopo.

The Sunday Times reported that then minister of land reform Gugile Nkwinti introduced this Luthuli House comrade‚ who was “shopping” for a thriving Limpopo farm‚ to one of his top officials at a land summit.

Just eight months after the meeting‚ Bekendvlei Farm was bought for R97-million and handed over to Present‚ who had been working at Luthuli House for more than 10 years‚ and his partner‚ businessman Moses Boshomane‚ to manage.

A senior departmental official had prioritised the deal by bypassing required procedures. A day after the deal went through‚ Nkwinti was the speaker at Present’s lavish wedding.

Neither Present nor Boshomane had an ancestral claim to the farm. They also had no agricultural experience‚ the newspaper reported.

ANC spokesperson Pule Mabe said the allegations against Present were of a “serious nature that the organisation had to exercise rules provided for in the ANC Personnel Manual‚ terminating his service with immediate effect”.

Present was one of four men arrested after a heist in Dobsonville‚ Soweto‚ during a raid by the Johannesburg Metropolitan Police Department and SA police.