Hawks bag municipal manager

MNQUMA municipal manager Sindile Tantsi is due to appear in court today after his sudden arrest yesterday on allegations of fraud and corruption amounting to millions of rand.

Not even his heavily armed bodyguards could protect him from a group of Hawks officers when they picked him up on the N2 near Mthatha yesterday. He was served with both an arrest and search warrant.

National Hawks spokesman Brigadier Hangwani Mulaudzi said the outspoken Butterworth municipal manager was arrested by members of a special task team formed by the Hawks in Pretoria.

The task team was established to investigate what the Hawks termed “worsening corruption” in three Eastern Cape municipalities, including Mnquma.

Tantsi is due to appear in the Butterworth Magistrate’s Court this morning.

He spent last night in custody after his lawyer failed to secure his release.

Although details of his alleged crimes will be revealed in court, according to sources the arrest relates to a R10-million tender Mnquma issued two years ago and subsequent kickbacks. He is the only suspect in the case so far. It was reported two weeks ago about Tantsi’s links to Butterworth businessman Sive Nombembe, whose company Big Event Boy (Pty) Ltd, was paid R10-million for supplying the municipality with black plastic bags.