Deputy minister scammed me – ANC donor
Businessman demands money back; says case docket went ‘missing’ twice
ELEVEN YEARS after allegedly being swindled out of R500 000, a relentless businessman is still hot on the heels in pursuit of embattled Public Works and Infrastructure Deputy Minister Bernice Swarts.
Tuwani Mulaudzi is accusing the deputy minister of tricking and defrauding him into paying R500 000 into her personal bank account purported to be going into the ANC’s coffers as a donation for its election campaign.
Mulaudzi claims nothing has happened to Swarts years later, despite having reported the theft to the Sunnyside police station with case number 398/9/2013, because Swarts was being protected by the party and his complaints had fallen on deaf ears.
Swarts, appointed deputy minister after the March 2023 Cabinet reshuffle by President Cyril Ramaphosa, is a senior ANC official and at number 18 on the ANC’s election candidate list, paving her way to the National Assembly after the May 29 elections.
The Star has seen bank records proving that Mulaudzi deposited the money into Swarts’s account in 2013, before she was an MP, which he thought was an ANC account for the party’s 2014 Tshwane region elections campaign.
In his founding affidavit, Mulaudzi said Gauteng Film Commission chief executive at the time, Andile Mbeki, along with Swarts, reached out to him for a donation for the party’s election campaign.
However, he alleges the funds never reached the party’s account and he lodged a complaint with the police and some senior ANC members.
The National Prosecuting Authority confirmed the matter was being probed.
The affidavit, seen by The Star reads: “They came to me under the pretext that I was donating the funds to the movement. I am not an active member of the ANC, but I have been donating to the movement for a while.
“They then asked me to give them my company profile and I obliged … Bernice and Andile provided Absa account details. I did an EFT … it then turned out upon inquiry that the account belonged to her; not the ANC region or branch as she had made me believe.”
Swarts had paid him back R40 000 after he kept asking for his money when he realised he was defrauded, he said.
The Star is in possession of the bank records obtained by police via a Section 205 subpoena proving Mulaudzi’s case.
The records include deposits and large over-the-counter withdrawals after he made deposits in five tranches of R150 000, R130 000, R120 000, R80 000 and lastly, R50 000 totalling to R530 000 into Swarts’s account.
Swarts tried to interdict this article after being sent questions, but had to withdraw her motion, paving the way for The Star to publish it. Through her attorneys, MPM Attorneys, Swarts denied that she was under any investigation. “… neither has she been charged for any criminal violation or declared a suspect or an accused person in any matter before the court. However, what we find is a malicious campaign of harassment waged by segments of the media, including The Star newspaper.
“Since April 8, 2024, our office has received numerous obscene, vulgar and threatening correspondence from Mr Mulaudzi in which he willfully and intentionally made false, misleading, and malicious statements to the firm, and to our client. Mr Mulaudzi is emboldened to harass our clients and firm. He has The Star newspaper in his corner (which has) has unfortunately or unwittingly enabled Mr Mulaudzi to harass, threaten and insult our client as well as members of our firm. We take a dim view of the recalcitrant manner in which he has expressed himself which is manifestly mala fide and malicious … Mr Mulaudzi is perpetuating a false narrative … ” the legal representatives said.
The investigating officer, Matodzi Frederick Sinugo, confirmed in a letter The Star has seen, dated April 10, that the docket of fraud lodged by Tuwani Matthews Mulaudzi is still under investigation. He wrote: “This is to confirm as the deponent wanted to know the status of the matter.”
Asked why he took so long to lodge his complaint, Mulaudzi said the matter took time with two dockets going “missing”. He had added a case of crimen injuria against Swarts following a WhatsApp exchange, observed by The Star, where Swarts used profanities, referencing his mother’s private parts.
It read in Afrikaans: “Jou ma se groot g#t, f!%*&n n~$%^r. You must go get bored somewhere else whoever you are bloody motherf*%*@r.”
Mulaudzi said he had also tried to reach out to senior ANC members to intervene. The Star saw correspondence between Mulaudzi and party heavyweights Frank Chikane, Pemmy Majodina, Kgalema Motlanthe and Gwede Mantashe to name a few.
On April 8, The Star sent questions to the National Prosecuting Authority’s (NPA) Lumka Mahanjana, but she never responded after asking in a text when Mulaudzi had opened a case.
But a letter addressed to Mulaudzi from the NPA’s advocate Jansen Van Vuuren, dated April 11 2024, stated: “This office has not taken a decision to decline to prosecute Bernice Swarts. The investigation officer has been requested to conduct further investigation and proceed with tracing Andile Mbeki.”
Mbeki’s phone rang unanswered despite many attempts from The Star.
The deputy minister is no stranger to controversy. Swarts was nearly sequestrated by businessman Leonard Machanzi over an acknowledgement of debt amounting to R10 million dating back to 2019. Swarts informed Machanzi about ANC events and he sent her money, but she could not explain why the money was deposited into her own account not the governing party’s.
However, Judge Seena Yacoob overturned an earlier order provisionally sequestrating Swarts after she indicated that she signed the acknowledgement of debt under duress.