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War Party. Greg Ardé
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“During the course of the investigation, however, one of the state’s witnesses, Martin Sithole, was gunned down … Of the five remaining witnesses, two made statements via their attorneys, alleging that they were forced to implicate the accused and were no longer willing to testify for the state. Two others laid charges with the SAPS, saying that they were forced by the police to make statements implicating Dr Mahlaba.” Based on these facts, the prosecutor said, it was extremely likely that, if the matter went to trial, the chances of succeeding were minimal.
I later established that one of the witnesses in the case against Mahlaba was employed by the municipality, in the mayor’s office.
Mahlaba’s claim that the malfeasance in Newcastle predates him was contradicted by other regional ANC leaders. Most Newcastle comrades, however, seem equally tainted and to have benefited from a range of multi-million-rand contracts either not completed or shoddily finished, including a swimming pool and two community halls.
An ANC source in Newcastle said that the real power there (until Mahlaba wrested it back in 2019) lay with Arthur Zwane, who enjoyed the support at times of fellow ANCYL regional heavyweight Senzo Khumalo. Mahlaba, who hailed from Nquthu, was a relative newcomer to Newcastle, having arrived to do his hospital in-service training there. It seems Zwane, Khumalo, Rehman and Mahlaba weren’t ideologically opposed. Many decisions relating to municipal contracts seem to have been taken on the basis of local patronage networks and ties. It is in the competition for first place at the feeding trough that the falling-out among comrades begins.
A boondoggle if ever there was
The horror of political assassination in KwaZulu-Natal, beyond what it foretells for the country as a whole, is that people have become inured to the violence. The bloody brutality, the cruelty and the human loss have largely become masked in the public eye. It is the new normal.
Beyond some graphic media reports, people who aren’t directly affected by the violence appear numbed. “That’s politics for you,” they will say with a shrug. Sometimes arrests are made and there’s much fanfare as politicians flock to the limelight in condemnation of the killing or to crusade around the innocence of one or other comrade.
This all played out in Umzimkhulu, a nondescript town typical of many inland of the sea between Durban and East London. There’s not much to it but a collection of drab buildings. The town is divided for the most part into two parallel roads which are fronted by cheek-by-jowl trading stores. The roads merge near a collection of buildings that appear distinct because they aren’t cash-and-carry outlets. They consist of a court building and a flophouse hotel and, opposite them, the municipality headquarters and the now notorious Memorial Hall.
Memorial Hall is more a bad merger of two buildings shells, one historic and another relatively new. It is a peculiar arrangement. There is a scuffed plaque commemorating the family of Donald Strachan, the first European reputed to have carved out a settlement in Umzimkhulu. At its core Memorial Hall is a crumbling period building with Cape Dutch gables, but there’s a ridiculous bolt-on construction where builders obviously tried to erect a bigger, more modern chamber. In March 2019 weeds grew around the rubble, exposed foundations and spalling concrete.
* * *
To think that three people were apparently murdered for Memorial Hall is appalling. The sight of it is enough to spur you to accelerate the last kilometre to the bridge that spans the Umzimkhulu River, the first stretch of the road home to Durban, 160 km away.
The building is a glaringly obvious boondoggle. In 2012 a R4 million contract was awarded to give the hall a facelift. Five years and two contractors later, the cost of the project had escalated to R16 million but most of the work was still incomplete. News reports later suggested that an official was romantically linked to the owner of the first company that was contracted and that was eventually kicked off site.
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