MEC IN SEX FOR TENDERS DEBACLE
Empty sex-for-tender promises’
MPUMALANGA safety and security MEC Vusi Shongwe is accused by a trailblazing Soweto businesswoman of being sexually intimate with her after promising her tenders and then dumping her like an incriminating exhibit.
Entrepreneur Phindi Makhathini alleges that she had a clandestine affair with Shongwe in 2010 but the married politician dumped her like a volcano spitting out hot lava after having sex with her.
But Shongwe says he does not know Makhathini from a bar of soap and encouraged her to take me to a court of “law ”.
Speaking to Sunday World from her Mndeni home, Makhathini says that she was introduced to Shongwe by a friend when the politico was still MEC for culture, sport and recreation in the province. The mother of three says it all started well and romance was in the air until the two spent the night together at a Pretoria hotel. We exchanged numbers through “my friend and started calling each other. One day he called me and said that he was on his way to Pretoria and asked me if we could meet there for lunch, to which I agreed,” she says.
Makhathini says Shongwe phoned later and invited her for dinner at the Protea Hotel in Pretoria: I then drove to
“Pretoria and parked at Macdonald' s where his bodyguards arrived in a 4x4 with blue lights and I followed them to
– the hotel where Vusi and I had dinner.” She says they later went into his room where they struck it off. He asked me what I was doing for a “living and I told him that I sell clothes, particularly ANC T-shirts. He promised me tenders if I had registered companies. When I was about to go, he persuaded me to sleep over. We had sex and I left the following day,” she says.
Makhathini says that Shongwe phoned to check up on her later in the day and he did so again the following day but the calls dried up after a few days. When I phoned him he would “answer his cellphone but told me that he was too busy to talk to me,” she says.
Makhathini says she was left heartbroken: He wouldn t answer my calls at “’ all. He simply ignored my calls. I then deleted his cell number and moved on with my life.”
Makhathini says what angered her most was when she waved at him during the ANC centenary celebration in Mangaung this year. He just looked at me as if he had “never seen me. Now is this what these politicians do? Sleep with women, promise them tenders, and leave them like that? I m so hurt,” she says. ’ When Shongwe was pressed for comment, he said: Oh that one, that one
“what is the name of the woman again? … I never go to Pretoria for anything, where can she prove that? Let her go to the court of law and prove that.”
Shongwe denied promising her tenders: If you are talking about
“tenders, what tenders can I have in the department of sports? I dont want to deal with crooks.”
Shongwe also confirmed that he went to Mangaung but denied that he ignored Makhathini. Yes I went to Mangaung but I don 't remember talking to or ignoring anyone. Im a reasonable person,” he says. ’
malatjin@sundayworld.co.za