EXCLUSIVE: The mystery of Minister Sisisi Tolashe’s missing SUVs

A Daily Maverick investigation suggests that Social Development Minister Sisisi Tolashe falsely told Parliament that she accepted two luxury vehicles from Chinese officials as donations for the ANC Women’s League — when in reality the cars appear to have been given to Tolashe’s two children for their personal use without ever being declared.

Tolashe did not respond to Daily Maverick’s request for comment on Wednesday.

How Parliament snookered Tolashe

When ActionSA MP Dereleen James asked Tolashe what had become of “two luxury 4x4 vehicles” that Tolashe was believed to have received from “officials representing a foreign government”, via a parliamentary question submitted on 4 December 2025, Tolashe ignored it.

This is a breach of parliamentary rules, which require Cabinet ministers to answer such questions within 10 working days. But James persisted, resubmitting the question when Parliament reopened in 2026, and demanding reasons for Tolashe’s failure to respond.

On 12 February 2026, Tolashe replied, writing that she “deeply regretted” the delay and that she “deeply respects the Constitutional role of Parliament as the supreme body for accountability”.

Tolashe answered “No” to the question of whether she had been given the two cars.

“The vehicles were donated to the African National Congress Women’s League (ANCWL) and there was therefore no need to declare or record [the cars] in the official record register or Register of Members’ Interests,” wrote Tolashe, who has been the president of the ANC Women’s League since July 2023.

But as Daily Maverick quickly discovered when we started asking questions, neither the ANC Women’s League nor the ANC as a whole appeared to have any awareness or record of such a donation.

ANC Women’s League Treasurer Maqueen Letsoha-Mathae responded to Daily Maverick’s question about a car donation: “I do not know of any car that is owned or registered by the WL [Women’s League].”

The ANC treasurer, Dr Gwen Ramokgopa, also seemed baffled by the question.

“I have no knowledge on the matter. It may help if you kindly follow up with her [Tolashe’s] office,” said Ramokgopa.

With the use of a photograph of the two cars leaked to Daily Maverick, we were able to trace the cars’ whereabouts over the past two years. The track led straight to Tolashe’s children.

But first, the story of the donation itself.

The donation that nobody recorded

For several days, Daily Maverick scoured ANC and government press releases, media reports and social media for any record of an event in recent years at which the ANC Women’s League might have accepted a donation of vehicles — since donors normally expect a flurry of positive publicity around such generosity.

From our interviews with sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity but who had worked closely with Tolashe in her former role as deputy minister of women, children and people with disabilities, we learned that the donation seemed to have been made between October and December 2023, while Tolashe was still in this deputy minister role.

Our sources alleged that the donation had been made by, or through, the embassy of China in Pretoria, under the leadership of former Chinese ambassador Chen Xiaodong, who served from 2020 to March 2024.

Our attempts to contact multiple officials at the embassy of China via email and phone for comment were unsuccessful.

Our sources were adamant, however, that the donation had been made on the understanding that the donated vehicles were for the use of the ANC Women’s League (ANCWL).

We could find no trace of any reference to a public handover event in recent years involving the ANCWL that might fit the bill, while a Women’s League insider told us she could not recall any occasion involving donated cars.

It appeared likely that the donation in question took place behind closed doors — and neither the Chinese embassy nor Tolashe seemed keen to share further details.

But we had one vital clue: the leaked photograph of the two donated cars.

Tracing the cars

The photograph of the two cars showed them to be two BAIC Beijing X55 SUVs, one white and one yellow. These Chinese-made vehicles retail for between R400,000 and R500,000 each new, bringing the total value of the donation to close to R1-million.

BAIC South Africa has, in the past, ingratiated itself with government departments by, for instance, handing over 20 SUVs to the Department of International Relations and Cooperation, but BAIC spokesperson Ameena Hassan told Daily Maverick she had no knowledge of any donation from the car manufacturer to the ANC Women’s League or to Tolashe.

The information leaked to Daily Maverick also included the original licence plate details, which enabled us to track the cars’ journeys since they were first sold.

Vehicle records informed us that on 19 December 2024 the cars were released from a Pretoria-based dealership company called Squad Cars, which has previously fallen foul of the National Consumer Commission.

Squad Cars has three dealerships in Pretoria, but also owns a BAIC franchise in the city, which is likely to be the source of Tolashe’s cars.

When Daily Maverick phoned the BAIC dealership, an employee said they could not release any information about the buyers of cars due to the Protection of Personal Information Act, unless we opened a criminal case and got the SA Police Service to request details.

The vehicle records showed, however, that on 15 April 2024, the ownership status of both cars changed.

The white SUV was now registered in the name of “N Tolashe”, and by cross-referencing databases, we confirmed that this was Nanilethu Tolashe, the son of Minister Sisisi Tolashe.

The yellow SUV was registered on 15 April 2024 in the name of “K Tolashe” — Kanyisa Tolashe, daughter of Minister Tolashe.

Registered to Tolashe’s children

Daily Maverick contacted both Nanilethu and Kanyisa Tolashe to offer them the opportunity to comment before publication, and did not receive a response. It should be noted, as a result, that it is unclear if Minister Tolashe’s children had any knowledge of the provenance of their new SUVs.

We have established, however, that neither car was linked to vehicle financing when the Tolashe children took ownership — so they may have known, at a minimum, that nobody was owed money for the cars.

When the Tolashe children took ownership of the cars, their mother was still a deputy minister, with a generous annual salary of just over R2-million.

In terms of the way these salaries are structured, however, and allowing for the relevant tax bracket deductions, Minister Tolashe would have probably have been taking home between R100,000 and R115,000 monthly at the time — a fortune for the vast majority of South Africans, but not so much that the sudden cash purchase of two new cars for a total close to R1-million might be totally unremarkable.

LinkedIn suggests that Nanilethu Tolashe (40) works as a business development manager for Afrika OV, an East London company that offers roofing solutions.

Daily Maverick confirmed that his sister, Kanyisa Tolashe (39), works as a project officer in the Public Service Reform Programme at the New South Institute — a prominent, well-respected and influential think-tank focusing on improving the professionalism, integrity and accountability of the South African government.

There is no suggestion that the New South Institute was aware of the findings of this article in any way.

Kanyisa Tolashe is not the current owner of the yellow BAIC SUV. Vehicle records we traced show that its ownership transferred to online car marketplace Weelee on 28 October 2025, suggesting that Tolashe sold it.

It was bought from Weelee by a Centurion-based engineer on 11 November 2025. He remains the owner.

Records suggest that the white SUV, however, remains in the possession of Nanilethu Tolashe.

There is currently no way of knowing whether Kanyisa Tolashe sold her car in late October 2025 for ordinary reasons or whether she was advised to do so.

Between 10 September and 16 October 2025, however, Daily Maverick published a series of damning articles exposing problematic and possibly unlawful practices at the Department of Social Development under Minister Tolashe.

The disclosures that never happened

If the luxury SUVs in question were truly donated to the ANC Women’s League, as Tolashe told Parliament, it is likely that, because of their combined value, the cars would have had to be disclosed as an in-kind donation, given that they far surpassed the R100,000 disclosure threshold.

Daily Maverick asked the Electoral Commission for confirmation of this, but had not received a reply by the time of publication.

There is no record of the cars in the ANC’s party funding disclosures for the relevant period.

If Tolashe kept the donations as personal gifts, both the Executive Ethics Code (governing the conduct of Cabinet ministers) and the Code of Ethical Conduct and Disclosure of Members’ Interests (governing the conduct of MPs) require her to disclose the cars as a gift.

The Executive Ethics Code prohibits ministers from “using their position or any information entrusted to them to enrich themselves or improperly benefit any other person”, and makes disclosure of all gifts above R350 mandatory.

Almost identical wording is found in the Code of Ethical Conduct and Disclosure of Members’ Interests, which mandates the disclosure of gifts above around R1,500 — although many MPs disclose all gifts, regardless of value, on principle.

The SUVs do not appear under Tolashe’s name in any Register of Members’ Interests in recent years.

​​The impression that emerges is that a Cabinet minister accepted close to R1-million worth of vehicles from foreign officials, told Parliament they were donated to an arm of a political organisation that claims no record of ever receiving them, and watched as they were quietly registered in her children’s names.

Can Minister Sisisi Tolashe offer an alternative explanation? DM