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Daily Maverick has decided to release fuller clips from secret recordings of a meeting between this journalist and Tebogo Malaka, suspended CEO of the Independent Development Trust (IDT). Malaka can clearly be heard saying the word “sixty”, after she was asked how much money she and IDT spokesperson Phasha Makgolane had brought with them.
Makgolane can also be heard confirming that the sum of money in the Dior shopping bag amounted to R60,000.
The meeting at a wine farm near Stellenbosch took place on Sunday, 3 August. Daily Maverick’s subsequent video and a related exposé into Malaka’s Waterfall property has sent shockwaves through South Africa.
The story that Malaka wanted to bury delves into a botched IDT EPWP scheme and prominent businessman Collen Mashawana’s involvement in a property currently being built for Malaka inside Gauteng’s Waterfall Country Estate. Mashawana funnelled at least R200,000 into House Malaka. This while his eponymous charitable foundation secured a R60-million contract from Malaka’s IDT to run employment schemes for nearly 2000 people across five provinces.
Scores of the EPWP workers were ripped off by the Collen Mashawana Foundation, with some of them receiving only fractions of the salaries that were due to them.
Despite the video evidence, Malaka and her family trust have gone on the offensive, claiming that she had no knowledge of the money Makgolane placed on the table. She also claimed that she was somehow being “set up” by unnamed forces.
In the extended footage we can now release, Malaka can be clearly heard discussing a cash bribe and further lucrative tenders in exchange for this journalist’s silence.
Malaka can also be heard admitting that Makgolane had briefed her on earlier discussions over possible payments to this journalist. DM
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Illustrative image | Tebogo Malaka, suspended IDT CEO. (Photo: IDT) | South African banknotes. (Photo: Pieter-Louis Myburgh) 