News24 | amaBhungane | Inside job: Rise and fall of woman who brought down Speaker Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula

• Nombasa Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu is the star witness accusing former National Assembly speaker and defence minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula of demanding kickbacks on contracts.
• Evidence pieced together by amaBhungane suggests that Nombasa Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu was part of a wider corrupt network in which the late secretary for defence, Sam Gulube, was a central figure.
• Internal SANDF documents, legal files and court records provide damning evidence against Mapisa-Nqakula and Gulube, but also implicate Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu, her ex-lawyer and at least two generals. 

In the early 2000s, Nombasa Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu led an ordinary life. An SAA flight attendant who had studied to be a nurse, she was involved in nothing that would draw public attention.

However, she eventually rose to become chair of African Aerospace, Maritime and Defence Industries Association (AMD) before resigning in January 2024 "to attend to personal legal issues".

A former colleague at the national carrier finds it hard to reconcile the "plain" air hostess with the high-flying businesswoman she has become, as well as the fact that she is a key witness against former defence minister and National Assembly speaker Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula. "She never… made any waves, and definitely not like this."

Mapisa-Nqakula is set to return on Monday to the Gauteng High Court in Pretoria, where she faces 12 charges of corruption and one of money laundering. She was arrested last April and has yet to plead, though she maintains her innocence.

The charges stem from explosive affidavits Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu made to the NPA’s Investigating Directorate Against Corruption (IDAC) in 2023 and early 2024. Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu alleged that she paid the then defence minister a total of R2.15 million while profiting from large military logistics contracts.

IDAC offered Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu indemnity for her part in Mapisa-Nqakula’s alleged corruption in exchange for her testimony. Under Section 204 of the Criminal Procedure Act, the trial court will confirm the indemnity only if she testifies "frankly and honestly".

In a second story on Monday, we will examine whether offering Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu indemnity was a wise decision, given what we reveal below to have been her alleged involvement in a much broader corruption scheme drawing in some of the military establishment’s most senior members.

Compounding the indemnity decision is the way separate fraud-and-corruption charges brought against Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu in 2020 by another NPA unit, the Specialised Commercial Crime Unit (SCCU), were thrown out of court two days before Nosiviwe-Nqakula’s arrest.

The SCCU charges against Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu also related to military logistics contracts, but did not include her payments to the minister.

Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu said that as a State witness she could not discuss the matter and that it was sub judice.

The glitz and the glam

Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu appears to love the finer things in life, if her and her siblings’ social media posts are anything to go by. 

One Facebook post shows her and her husband, SANDF deputy surgeon general Major-General Noel Ndhlovu, holidaying in New York. Others show them in an exotic location riding a camel and posing with cobras.

A 2013 post records Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu’s "1^st kill!!" on a hunt: a wildebeest.

Another post five years later speaks of a 50-hectare Mpumalanga farm stocked with "Brahman, Boran, Hereford & Simbra. Also Limousine & Bonsmara!" The farm is owned by the Vanana Trust, named after Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu’s late father. She, her husband and her brother, Sabelo Ntsondwa, have been listed as its trustees.

The trust also owns a property in KwaDwesi, Gqeberha, and earlier owned an agricultural holding north of Johannesburg.

Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu declared in bail proceedings four years ago that she owned three Eastern Cape properties and two Gauteng properties worth about R25 million in total. In 2013, she tagged herself in a photograph of a BMW X5 and BMW M6 coupé parked outside her garage, saying, "My home is running out of space, lol!" In the bail proceedings she declared owning a Maserati Ghibli and a Range Rover Sport.

Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu’s three younger siblings also flaunt her luxurious lifestyle on Facebook.

Her younger sister, Andiswa Joyi, bragged in 2021 about how she, Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu and their brother were "travelling in a private jet with the family, going home to Mtata (sic)". The aircraft was a turboprop Pilatus PC-12.

Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu hails from the Eastern Cape, where she attended school in Gqeberha’s KwaMagxaki township. The Ntsondwa siblings – Nombasa, brother Sabelo, younger sister Andiswa and elder sister Siphokazi Sowazi – were cared for by their aunt and uncle after their parents and baby sister died in a 1988 car accident.

Siphokazi, according to her LinkedIn profile, is a media specialist formerly employed as the ANC’s "head: business development". Sabelo has worked with both sisters: Siphokazi in relation to the ANC and Nombasa in defence contracting.

Siphokazi and Sabelo were involved in ANC fundraising shindigs, including presidential gala evenings and business forum summits through their company New Media Inc, his Facebook posts show.

From strength to strength

Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu’s path to success was not without twists and turns.

After school she enrolled at Gqeberha’s Charlotte Searle nursing college. She left before completing the course. Later, she joined SAA as a flight attendant before being promoted to the ground-based job of cabin crew relations manager.

Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu’s rise through SAA’s ranks came to a halt in 2007 after she and other women laid sexual harassment complaints against senior managers at the airline. City Press reported her saying at the time: "I know I am not an exec, but this does not mean men must just impose themselves and refuse to stop when told."

Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu left SAA after this. Consumer data suggests she did a stint with Eskom.

Company registration data shows that she registered two businesses, TM IT Consulting and Sinopi Event and PR Management, in 2007 and 2008 respectively. Her partner in TM IT was Lindiwe Mamashela, whom company registration records show became a director of the Dr Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma Foundation in 2019.

At Sinopi Event and PR, Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu rubbed shoulders with people of influence.

In August 2010, she posted pictures on Facebook of her and Deputy President Paul Mashatile, then Gauteng ANC chair, at one of what she said were "a number of events done by Sinopi".

Another photo she posted in December of that year shows her at a Sinopi-hosted launch in Kimberly for a book by Phathekile Holomisa, the long-serving president of the Congress of Traditional Leaders (Contralesa) and later deputy minister of correctional services.

The SANDF’s logistical woes

Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu’s initial foray into the defence environment came in January 2011, according to her 2023 affidavit against Mapisa-Nqakula for IDAC. She worked as a consultant for a Johannesburg-based logistics company, Consortium Shipping, when it transported equipment for the SANDF between SA and Burundi.

On 31 May 2012, Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu registered her own military logistics company, Umkhombe Marine.

Coincidentally, then-president Jacob Zuma appointed Mapisa-Nqakula as minister of defence in a Cabinet reshuffle two weeks after Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu registered Umkhombe. There is no evidence that the two women were acquainted then.

The government was increasingly deploying the SANDF to peacekeeping missions on the continent. However, the military faced a severe logistics crisis fuelled by mismanagement and chronic underfunding, creating a gap for private contractors.

Company registration records list Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu as Umkhombe’s sole director, though she would in time employ her siblings Sabelo and Andiswa.

Umkhombe seems to have relied on subcontracting other businesses, including state-owned-companies, to transport equipment the SANDF hired it to transport. But what it lacked in assets, Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu seems to have made up for in networking and connectivity.

Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu also became a 30% shareholder in a local offshoot of the controversial UK-Zimbabwe aviation group Avient. The local company wanted to tender for SANDF work and needed a black economic empowerment partner.

"We found Nombasa," said former Avient director Lewis Kling, "and she became a very good option for us to bring on board for all the reasons relating to BEE – the fact that she was apparently well connected into the defence force and everything".

Kling added: "The irony is that, having brought Nombasa on board, we had to then bid for the next tender, and we got disqualified on a technicality."

Kling said Avient and Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu parted ways after this.

Umkhombe’s website, which is littered with spelling and grammatical errors, however continues to list it as a shareholder in Avient and still claims that Avient "does all our airfreight movement", mainly for the SANDF, with Soviet-era Il-76 and An-124 transport aircraft.

Avient Air, another company in the group, was flagged in a United Nations Security Council reporta decade earlier for its alleged involvement with international arms trafficker Leonid Minim during the DRC civil war. The report also alleged that Avient was contracted to organise bombing raids and worked with the Zimbabwean military during the war.

Tenders after tea

Umkhombe, according to Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu’s 2023 IDAC affidavit, won its first SANDF tender, valued at R1.5-million, in 2013. It was for "dry goods" – coffee and tea apparently. That was just enough to whet Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu’s appetite.

Umkhombe landed a series of large logistics contracts in the years to follow. They were for the transportation of equipment to and from SANDF contingents deployed on peacekeeping missions in the DRC and Sudan.

The defence department issued the first and smallest of the three logistics tenders in November 2014. The SANDF needed vehicles transported to the DRC and redundant equipment returned to SA.

It was a closed bid restricted to seven preselected companies according to the SCCU charge sheet against Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu. Umkhombe was among them. Also included, the charge sheet states, was a transport company that owned a single taxi, a stationery distributor and AB Logistics, a division of state-owned Armscor. AB Logistics failed to submit a bid given that the deadline was less than a week.

The charge sheet claims that in fact only Umkhombe submitted a bid. "Umkhombe had an advantage over its competitors as it… was provided, before the time, with information about the bid."

As part of their bid, the charge sheet also alleges, Umkhombe and Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu submitted fake empowerment, marine insurance and financial credibility certificates. None of this mattered and Umkhombe won the contract. It was paid R34.66 million, having bid R24.76 million.

SANDF spokesperson Colonel Selinah Rawlins declined to comment on contracts awarded to the company, saying the matter was sub judice.

Military documents, records from the court cases against Mapisa-Nqakula and Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu and leaked correspondence between Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu and her then attorney, Eric Bryer, provide details of subsequent SANDF logistics contracts awarded to Umkhombe and how they doubled and trebled in value.

Bryer acted for Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu and Umkhombe between 2016 and 2020.

The Sudan tender

After another closed tender – restricted to 10 invitees and again including the single-taxi company and the stationery distributor – Umkhombe landed a R104-million contract to transport equipment to SANDF troops deployed on a hybrid African Union-UN peacekeeping mission in Darfur, Sudan.

The letter of award was dated 11 February 2016. The next day Lieutenant-General Duma Mdutyana, who had just been appointed chief of joint operations, instructed in writing that the contract be put on hold "due to unforeseen circumstances", which turned out to be a decision from Zuma as commander-in-chief to withdraw the SANDF from Darfur.

Though Mdutyana’s "hold" instruction was dated 12 February, the onward notification to Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu was dated three days later, 15 February.

Soon, through attorney Bryer, Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu was demanding R30-million-plus from the SANDF for expenses allegedly committed to in the interim.

The expenses, she claimed, were for engaging local aviation company Soviet Air Charter and Dubai-based Aztec Shipping to place aircraft and vehicles on standby to transport the equipment to Sudan.

The SCCU charge sheet against Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu includes a fraud count alleging that she in fact "had not incurred" the expenses. It is understood that the investigation uncovered evidence suggesting at least one of the invoices – Aztec’s for US$1.9 million – was fake.

The threat of legal action managed to secure Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu a meeting with the SANDF’s then logistics chief, Lieutenant-General Morris Moadira, at his office in Tshwane.

She also called Mapisa-Nqakula – their first documented contact – having been put in touch by a connected businessperson. "After having explained my concerns and frustrations to the minister, she undertook to look into the matter and revert," Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu states in her 2023 IDAC affidavit. "She unfortunately never reverted to me."

Be that as it may – and whether this was before or after the call to the minister is not clear – logistics chief Moadira instructed in early May 2016 that “all future cargo transportation for the external mission areas must be solely awarded to Umkhombe Marine until the demanded amount is exhausted”.

This was likely an illegal instruction and it was unclear whether Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu could simply add an extra R30-million to her next bill, which is exactly what she tried to do.

Moadira recorded at the time that he had made his ruling after being instructed by the two most senior defence officials, then defence secretary Dr Sam Gulube and then SANDF chief General Solly Shoke, "to avoid unnecessary legal battle" and "that an amicable solution must be devised".

Moadira declined to respond to amaBhungane in detail, saying he had provided the military police with the information in 2023, "so you can contact that sergeant major of the military police and he will give you those answers. They said whoever comes to me about this I must send to them".

Asked why he met Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu and if it was on Shoke and Gulube’s instruction, he said: "These were the questions that I answered."

He also said the tender had come from the joint operations division."I didn’t know the company. I didn’t know anything."

hoke declined to comment, saying that he felt "insulted to be associated with wrongdoing" and that he would not "talk about matters that are before the courts involving other people – that is unethical of me to talk about that".

The replacement tender

As per Moadira’s instruction, 10 days later the defence department’s Central Procurement Service Centre (CPSC) asked Umkhombe to submit a bid for transporting equipment between SA and the DRC. Umkhombe was the only company invited to bid.

Umkhombe quoted R109 million, which included R30 million to defray the expenses Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu claimed to have incurred on the lapsed Sudan contract.

This was approved all the way up, from the officer commanding the CPSC to the brigadier in charge of procurement management.

However, the bid hit a roadblock at a higher body, the Departmental Commercial Procurement Board (DCPB), which must approve high-value tenders. Classified DCPB minutes, which made their way to Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu and her attorney Bryer, show that members initially turned down the award to Umkhombe.

The DCPB recorded in June 2016 that "it is not clear why the company must be awarded" a R109-million contract for a R30-million loss, for which in any case "no proof… has been submitted". It also held that "the entire motivation is anchored on the premise that the award to the said company on a single source basis will avert the legal case and litigation process. This is a flawed argument since there is currently no pending litigation…"

But Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu had others in her corner. In a subsequent email to Bryer concerning possible litigation against the defence department after all, she remarked: "I just spoke to the silent partner, he says it is very necessary."

One candidate for the "silent partner" must be Gulube, the defence secretary. Two days after that email a company named Nolutabo registered a business partnership with Umkhombe on government’s central supplier database. Nolutabo’s sole director was Gulube’s wife, Lillian More-Gulube.

In her 2023 IDAC affidavit, Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu acknowledged a relationship with Gulube. “I knew him through his wife Lillian Gulube. My husband and I used to visit the Gulubes’ home and vice versa. We spent the 2015 December holidays together in Mauritius.”

In other words, Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu had holidayed with the defence department’s top official, the man who presided over the military procurement system, shortly before being awarded the Sudan tender and being given the exclusive opportunity to bid for the replacement DRC tender. Additionally, at least in the later stages when Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu awaited the outcome of the replacement tender, her partner was Gulube’s wife.

Elsewhere, Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu cast herself as a victim. An anonymous "whistleblower" statement a lawyer submitted to Parliament on her behalf in 2021, well after her arrest, claimed that "Dr Gulube coerced our client to work with his wife. Our client was uncomfortable with that".

"Again, she did not have a choice and feared the consequences of defying Dr Gulube. Our client paid Dr Gulube's wife R200 000.00 for some services rendered. However, our client felt that she was overcharged and was unhappy."

Both Gulubes died, reportedly of Covid-19, in 2021.

In early August 2016, the DCPB relented and approved the DRC replacement award to Umkhombe. The perplexing rationale, minutes show, was that the Sudan contract had not been cancelled procedurally and that "cancellations can have negative financial implications to either the supplier or the DoD".

The award came with conditions though: Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu had to confirm in writing that she would drop her R30-million claim. This tender award would be for R79-million only, not R109-million, and there would be no further replacement tenders.

Two former DCPB members have claimed that the decision was made without a legal opinion that the DCPB had earlier insisted on, with one saying that the chair appeared "uncomfortable about what had happened".

Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu accepted the conditions. She emailed Bryer with the news of the contract award, copying Major-General Noel Ndhlovu, the SANDF’s deputy surgeon general. They were married three days later. The general and Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu had been dating since February 2015 according to information contained in Bryer’s files.

Ka-ching ka-ching

Umkhombe was paid its R79 million in six tranches, starting with R15 million in mid-October 2016, according to the SCCU charge sheet against Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu.

A fortnight later R150 000, the first of seven tranches totalling R1.35 million, left Umkhombe’s account, the charge sheet and a military police memorandum allege. The money went to a seemingly innocuous company named Perfume de Lux, though it might have seemed out of place in a military setting.

Perfume de Lux’s sole director was Busisiwe, wife of Lieutenant-General Derrick Mgwebi. And therein lay the catch.

Mgwebi had been chief of joint operations – the SANDF division responsible for peacekeeping deployments – when Umkhombe won its first DRC tender and when the Sudan tender was initiated. Joint operations set the tender specifications and controlled the budget.

By the time the Sudan tender was awarded to Umkhombe only to be put on hold, Mgwebi had moved to a new command: of the entire UN force in the DRC, the very mission whose SA component was served by Umkhombe’s replacement tender.

Umkhombe’s Perfume de Lux payments earned Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu a corruption count in the SCCU charges against her.

Mgwebi denied to amaBhungane that he had been bribed. He said that "no one has ever asked me [about it] from the side of the authorities" and that he had not been in a position to influence awards to Umkhombe.

"Understand the government has supply chain management. Where do I fit in supply chain management? Because the approval and the process of procuring… is done in the logistical department which is separate from where I am seated."

Even within his joint operations division, he said, "the person who does all that requests and process to [the] logistics [division] is a person at a major-general level sitting at level three. It doesn’t come to level two where I was seated".

Mgwebi would not comment on the alleged payments to Perfume de Lux. "It would be unbecoming for me to talk on behalf of an independent person or business entity. I'm not even a shareholder in the company you're referring to."

Be that as it may, some of Umkhombe’s R79 million allegedly peeled off in another direction too. The first SANDF tranche hit Umkhombe’s account in in mid-October 2016. Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu states in her 2023 IDAC affidavit that defence secretary Gulube asked to see her not long after, in November or early December.

"On arrival at his home in Irene, in Pretoria, he asked to speak to me in private in the lounge. In the meeting, he informed me that he had been sent by the minister to request a sum of R300 000.00 from me…

"A few days later on or about the second week of December 2016, I delivered the requested cash to Dr Gulube's home and he was in a hurry to leave when I arrived. He stated that he was going to attend a meeting with the then President Zuma at his official residence in Mahlamba Ndlopfu.

"I gave him the cash which was contained in an FNB money bag and we were in the lounge. There was no one present when I gave him the cash. His wife Lillian was present somewhere in the house preparing a drink for me."

Despite her friendship with the Gulubes, Ntsondwa-Ndlovu alleges, she did not trust him. "I was not sure if Dr Gulube was using the minister's name for his benefit."

She turned back to Mgwebi. "I asked him to connect me with the minister so that I could verify with her if the requests for cash were indeed originating from her."

Mgwebi allegedly complied and Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu got an audience with Mapisa-Nqakula at OR Tambo International Airport. "She said, 'You want to know if l am the one who asked for the R300 000.00, yes it's me, and thank you.'"

After that, the then-minister’s requests were directly to her, according to Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu’s 2023 IDAC affidavit. She states that she handed Mapisa-Nqakula two further amounts, R200 000 and R150 000, at the latter’s home in Bruma, Johannesburg, during 2017.

These first three alleged payments, along with another seven in subsequent years – R2.15 million in total – are at the heart of IDAC’s corruption charges against Mapisa-Nqakula. She is also charged in connection with a further R2.4 million allegedly solicited but not paid.

Mgwebi, who is listed as a prosecution witness against Mapisa-Nqakula, declined to comment on the implication that he had played the role of messenger regarding a bribe request. "As you would know now, the minister is charged. Part of the story and whether it happened or not becomes part of the court proceedings… I am sure you would understand I don’t want to say things that are sub judice.”

Searching for evidence

Sometime after the replacement tender, the military police began investigating exactly how Umkhombe had won its bids.

A confidential memorandum signed by then military police chief Mokgadi Maphoto shows that the investigation, which was registered in November 2017, came to focus on, among other things, Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu’s so-called R30-million loss from the Sudan tender, her alleged failure to declare her romantic involvement with the SANDF’s deputy surgeon general, the awarding of the replacement tender and the bribes allegedly paid to Mgwebi.

Maphoto addressed the memorandum, dated August 2018, to the SANDF’s then logistics and joint operations chiefs and copied it to Shoke, the SANDF chief. He concluded with a plea that Umkhombe "not be considered or be afforded the opportunity to bid until the finalisation of the investigation".

The plea fell on deaf ears.

The Big One

Three months earlier, in May 2018, the defence department had advertised a tender to transport equipment and vehicles between SA and the DRC.

The tender closed in June. The CPSC evaluated it in July, disqualifying 10 out of 11 bidders – many on technicalities, CPSC minutes show. Only Umkhombe, which had bid a hefty R105 million, was left standing.

The CPSC recommended Umkhombe to the DCPB, the board that must approve high-value tenders, in August. That same month, Mapisa-Nqakula reached out to Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu after a nine-month hiatus, Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu’s 2023 IDAC affidavit and the charge sheet against Mapisa-Nqakula allege.

This was a pivotal time in the adjudication of Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu’s most lucrative tender yet.

Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu alleges that the then-minister asked for R250 000.

"I took… cash and delivered it to her on 17 August 2018 at Zwartkops where there was an event of the Spouses Forum. I was the programme director of the event. The cash was contained in a gift bag… I gave her that money as the so-called ‘padkos’ since she was to leave for Port Elizabeth."

During September, Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu alleges, she handed Mapisa-Nqakula two more amounts of R150 000 each at her Bruma home and the US dollar-equivalent of another R150 000, which the then-minister wanted for shopping in New York, at a Waterkloof air base event.

By 5 November, all the approvals had been given and Ntsondwa-Ndlhovu got her R105-million letter of award. Two days later, according to her affidavit, "the minister sent me a message at 07:59 asking me to organise a 'wig' for her. This was another code word for money which she introduced to me."

Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu held out until early February 2019, by which time Umkhombe had received payments comprising a substantial part of its R105 million, before complying. She met Mapisa-Nqakula at OR Tambo where, she alleges, she handed her R300 000. The money was in a bag from wig supplier Sarhap with a "short bob wig" covering it.

After that, Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu alleges, she made two final payments of R400 000 and R100 000 to Mapisa-Nqakula in April and July 2019.

Spreading the spoils

As with the 2016 replacement tender though, the spoils of the 2018 tender flowed in more than one direction.

Umkhombe had invoiced its final R10 million of the R105-million contract in early March 2019. A handwritten note in one of attorney Bryer’s client files indicates that he met Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu on Thursday 28 March. Bryer records an instruction: "Order 500 for Sat for Thoyandou [sic]."

That same afternoon, Bryer emailed a contact at FNB: "Please order for me 500 k for Saturday[.] Making a withdrawal from my trust account."

The following day, Friday, a deposit of R600 000 – reference Umkhombe Marine – hit Bryer’s legal practitioner’s trust account. And the FNB contact confirmed: "[We] will take out the cash for you tomorrow thanks."

The cycle ended with an FNB cash withdrawal slip dated that Saturday 30 March, for R500 000. It was annotated in Bryer’s hand: "Ho ho Thoyandou" and "Phillip".

What had just happened was that R500 000 from Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu had been turned into cash – laundered – via Bryer’s legal practitioners’ trust account, which is an account ring-fenced for client funds. The cash seemed destined for someone called Phillip, perhaps in Thohoyandou, Limpopo.

The same procedure was repeated in May – a R600 000 deposit referenced Umkhombe and R500 000 cash out – though this time there was no indication of the recipient.

"Phillip’s" identity is not hard to discern though. When a third Umkhombe tranche of R600 000 landed in June, Bryer noted a query to Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu: "What is instruction re above[?] 500 for farming 100 for you[?]"

Emails, payment records and a handwritten ledger show that Bryer started drawing down from the R500 000 the following day to make payments on behalf of a farming enterprise, Lugisani Milling Services, based in Thohoyandou, and its owner, Phillip Mavhungu.

And therein, once again, lay the catch. Mavhungu – Brigadier-General Mavhungu – was chief of staff at joint operations headquarters, the SANDF division responsible for peacekeeping deployments.

The chief of staff, said defence analyst Helmoed Heitman, controlled the division’s purse strings, making financial recommendations to the division’s commander.

The single biggest expense from the R500 000 was R300 000 paid to milling equipment manufacturer ABC Hansen Africa. It was a deposit on a R1.3-million invoice for the supply and installation of a "super maize mill". ABC Hansen notified Bryer in May the following year, 2020, that the order was ready and a balance of R1.09 million outstanding.

[embed invoice here: 190704_doc_ABC Hansen milling equipment Philip Mavhungu Work Order.PDF]

Bryer forwarded the email to Mavhungu, copying Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu at her Umkhombe email address. Bryer’s files do not show who covered the balance. It is understood that the equipment was delivered in June 2020.

Mavhungu declined to respond to detailed questions, saying that he had "never worked or been appointed at procurement" and that Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu "never paid money into my company".

Cover-up

Bryer’s apparent cash laundry for Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu went wider than the examples seemingly connected to Mavhungu. His files contain evidence of further withdrawals from his trust account following Umkhombe deposits in 2018 and 2019.

The largest Umkhombe deposit, R700 000, landed in Bryer’s trust account in March 2019, on the day Umkhombe invoiced its final tranche under the R105-million tender. Bryer withdrew R550 000 in cash the next day, annotating the withdrawal slip "500 N" – his usual abbreviation for Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu – and "50 Sister". Another slip for a R240 000 withdrawal in July that year is annotated "Nombasa (H)". Other withdrawals do not reference apparent recipients.

It appears likely that much of the cash was handed to Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu, who may have commingled some of it with the alleged payments to Mapisa-Nqakula. (Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu states in her 2024 IDAC affidavit that the source of the Mapisa-Nqakula payments was cash withdrawals from Umkhombe’s account for operational needs and was generally held in her safe.)

Whether the Bryer cash greased other palms is not known. However, some effort went into disguising the purpose of the payments. Bryer’s files contain an email he sent Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu in July 2019 as the cash withdrawals were piling up. He told her he had consulted chartered accountant Meshack Nyepa, who "recommends that we sign two binding contracts… This way we cover any payments made to me".

Bryer emailed Ntsondwa the two contracts for signature, ostensibly for his consulting services to Umkhombe and his legal services to her. The contracts were backdated more than three years to 2016, when their association began.

Nyepa vehemently denied to amaBhungane that he had advised Bryer to draw up fraudulant contracts: "How can he get advice from someone who is not legal, yet he is a legal person? We never had an engagement with that client called Nombasa."

Bryer, who stopped representing Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu and Umkhombe after an apparent fallout over a R3-million fee, declined comment. He is believed to have surrendered his files to IDAC for their Mapisa-Nqakula investigation.

Closing in

Come May 2019, Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu was spooked. She had been leaked a draft affidavit made by Simphiwe Damane-Mkosana, Gulube’s former legal adviser, in response to a query from the military police – who, it was crystal clear, were storming ahead with their fraud-and-corruption investigation into the Sudan tender and Umkhombe’s R30-million claim.

Ntsondwa forwarded the affidavit to Bryer, who forwarded it to attorney Louis Weinstein, whom he instructed to write to Gulube with a demand to have the investigation quashed.

"The contract was approved by all the required parties," Bryer wrote. "Now three years later this contract is being investigated by the military police… The rumour, totally unfounded is that the contract was awarded through bribery and corruption."

Gulube and Mapisa-Nqakula "must be advised accordingly and an immediate stop [be] put to this", Bryer wrote, adding ominously: "Their positions are in jeopardy too."

Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu would have none of Weinstein though. She wanted an advocate to write the letter, not an attorney. "Eric the reason I paid R100 000.00 is to get a high profile advocate I can't poke a bear with a small stick like this… This is not a can of worms I can open & run when done, this is my life & future."

Bryer then instructed an advocate, Norman Makhubela. Makhubela’s subsequent missive, to his credit, contained no personal threats to Gulube and the minister, but demanded he "immediately and decisively bring this malicious investigation to its conclusion", failing which Umkhombe would "have no other option but to exercise her legal options".

Whether the strategy was to give Gulube pretext – once again to avoid a lawsuit – is not known. Either way, the military police did not back off.

Come April 2020, Bryer seemed to panic too. He emailed fellow attorney André Steenkamp pleading for advice. "I know she is best friends of the secretary general Sam Gulube who I suspect is the brains. I also acted for Gulube’s wife at one stage. She told me Gulube’s share was R7 million for the contract. It is common that there is a case of tender fraud… What do you think sir? Please advise."

The military police arrested Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu in October 2020 and she was charged with fraud and corruption.

The fraud charges stemmed from the allegedly false empowerment, insurance and financial credibility certificates she had submitted for her 2014 DRC tender, as well as her allegedly false claim for R30 million after the Sudan tender was put on hold in 2016.

The corruption charges related to the R1.35 million allegedly paid to former joint operations chief Mgwebi via his wife’s company Perfume de Lux.

The charges, however, were struck off shortly before Mapisa-Nqakula’s arrest last April.

Read all about it in our next story tomorrow.