The commission is expected to hear testimonies from Abel Kgotso Manyike, Director at ORI Group and Edwin Sodi who is the CEO of Blackhead Consulting. 

Their testimonies comes a day after the former Director-General of the Human Settlements Department, Thabane Wiseman Zulu, took the stand. Zulu, in his testimony yesterday, had to account for a R600 000 payment made by Sodi towards his Range Rover. 

Evidence leader, Advocate Paul Pretorius, told the commission its investigators had traced a R600 000 payment made from an Absa bank account belonging to Sodi to SMD Trading - a car dealership in KwaZulu-Natal - soon after Blackhead Consulting and Diamond Hill Trading joint venture were awarded the more than R200 million asbestos contract by the Free State government

Zulu, however, told the commission that Sodi was actually paying the money because of what he owed him from their past liquor business dealings and that the money was not linked to the 2014 asbestos contact. He said Sodi made payments to SMD on his instruction as a form of payment for the debt owed by the businessman to one of his businesses, TZ Lounge in Pietermaritzburg.

OFM News previously reported that the provincial department has been found guilty of improper conduct involving the asbestos housing contract awarded to two Gauteng-based companies by the Public Protector, Busisiwe Mkhwebane.

Mkhwebane, in her May report, outlined that the provincial department participated in an expired contract of the Gauteng Human Settlements Department, and failed to conduct a due diligence investigation before participating in this contract. She said the province was in possession of the Gauteng Department's Service Legal Agreement, which had expired, and went ahead to pay the service provider an amount of R139 million despite the Auditor-General having declared the procurement as irregular as early as July 31 2015.

She said the service provider had subcontracted the contract at a fee of just over R21 million, while the service provider walked away with R230 million.

Manyike and Sodi's testimonies are expected to shed more light on how they got to charge the department that amount.

OFM News