Johannesburg administrators have lied to the city’s people: powerful political broker and former property executive Helen Botes has not left the city’s employ as claimed by spokesperson Nthatisi Modingoane last week.
Instead, as the images show, Botes was in a “bomb squad” meeting the day after the claims were made.
She is now a consultant to the city, sitting in on its most sensitive meetings, paid either by contractors to the city or by the city itself, Daily Maverick understands.
“We stand by our statement. I checked both the COJ [City of Johannesburg] and JPC [Johannesburg Property Company] payrolls, and she is not there, and I cannot comment further on this matter,” said Modingoane.
On 20 August, Modingoane wrote to Daily Maverick: “The City wishes to confirm that Ms Helen Botes is not an employee of the City or the JPC.” The following day, whistleblowers sent Daily Maverick images showing Botes present at a senior-level meeting.
Read more: Former Johannesburg Property Company boss Helen Botes leaves city council
Several members of the public with knowledge of the city sent messages saying that Botes had not left the building as claimed by Modingoane.
Johannesburg’s services are in a crisis, and the city is in emergency-lite mode. This is being overseen by a Presidential Working Group, a team sent in by President Cyril Ramaphosa, and by a “bomb squad” led by ANC veterans’ leader Snuki Zikalala.
This “bomb squad” is meant to light a fire under the city’s entities like City Power, Johannesburg Water, Pikitup and the Johannesburg Roads Agency, which are the pain points of municipal failure.
Botes is now a consultant to the “bomb squad”, Zikalala confirmed. The images show her at a meeting of the “Mayoral Integration Operational War Room — Interface Day” (we also don’t know what that means). He said that she knew the city inside out and had a working knowledge of its opaque entities. She was playing a constructive role, he said.
Botes did not immediately respond to Daily Maverick’s request for comment.
Chequered history
Botes has a chequered history in Johannesburg. She was implicated in negligence in the Usindiso shelter fire in August 2023, in which 76 people were killed.
She was also implicated by the Special Investigating Unit for spending R18.6-million on dodgy companies in Covid-19 procurement criminality. These providers failed to do the work on city property, and the spending happened even when most city staffers were working from home. (See Mark Heywood’s report here.)
These two cases underpin a delinquent director application against Botes to the High Court this month by the anti-corruption organisation Outa, as reported here.
Asked if her supposed exit from the city would end the case, Outa’s advocate Stefanie Fick said: “I sometimes wonder if they [the city] think one is stupid. It’s a slap in the face for residents. This won’t stop the case.”
The Companies Act was amended after a recommendation by the Commission of Inquiry into State Capture. Delinquency can be declared for five years (it used to be two years) after a director leaves the board. It can also be granted on “good cause” found. This amendment was to ensure against dodgy characters quitting boards ahead of investigations or delinquency proceedings.
“It won’t change our case against her at all. I haven’t heard that she has filed a motion of intention to defend,” said Fick. Up to this month, Botes was still registered as a director of the JPC, the city’s property behemoth she has presided over since 2008. DM