WeeklySA_AdminGRAFT: Former CEO of Bloemfontein’s municipality-owned electricity company gunned down, current boss threatened, two other executives killed in the past three years…
By Mpikeleni Duma
Free State businessman Andries Mgoqi, shot dead in a hail of bullets last Friday, is the third executive linked to the Bloemfontein’s power distribution utility to be executed in as many years.
The 51-year-old Mgoqi was the former chief executive of local power utility Centlec, which controls a budget in the region of R3 billion a year, and has been racked by controversy and board resignations in the past two years. The current board was appointed after July last year following a series of resignations which collapsed the previous board.
Mgoqi was assassinated by a lone gunman outside his Kofifi Lifestyle tavern in Bergman Square, Bloemfontein (Mangaung) last Friday, around 8pm. The attack was captured in a CCTV video that went viral this week.
According to unconfirmed reports, Mgoqi had garnered properties worth R28 million in Gauteng and the Free State, including Kofifi Lifestyle, and was believed to have accumulated tremendous wealth in the past few years. At the time of his passing, Mgoqi and Centlec were embroiled in a long-running legal case over the termination of his contract at Centlec in 2020 after the expiry of his five-year term as CEO.
In 2021, local businessman Chose Choeu was the first person associated with Centlec to be murdered. Choeu was found hacked to death at his home in Bloemfontein. His killers are still at large.
In 2022, David Khanda (50), who was attached to Centlec’s intervention team, was the second person to fall victim to assassins. Khanda was shot around 21h30 in September that year, shortly after parking his car. He was one of the employees in the intervention unit reporting directly to current CEO Malefane Sekoboto. He was an ex Umkhonto Wesizwe operative and member of the South African Municipal Workers Union.
In the latest twist, Sekoboto and Sello More, city manager of Mangaung Metro, have reportedly received death threats with police even confirming this after texts were reportedly sent to the Centlec CEO. In one of the texts, the location of his house, the place of work of his wife, and the physical address of his parents were mentioned.
According to online publication Step up, Major General Makhele of Crime Intelligence expressed the view that Sekoboto was indeed under threat and needed to be provided with two or three protectors.
Just last month, Simon Thulo, a renowned supply chain practitioner, was shot at close range but survived the attack. No arrests have been made.
Mgoqi’s death has sent shock waves throughout the Free State, where he was revered as a businessman with extensive connections, including apparently being an ally of former Free State premier Ace Magashule.
In the video, Mgoqi is seen chatting to a friend on the street when a man passing by suddenly turns and releases a volley of shots – which fell the businessman to the ground – before disappearing into the night. The gunman reportedly sped off the scene in a white Mercedes Benz.
Mgoqi will be buried in his home town Sterkspruit, Eastern Cape, on March 2, according to his family, who are still reeling from the shock of his sudden death.
According to sources close to the investigation, Mgoqi has been fearing for his life since December 2023, after certain “business associates” made certain demands to him and issued ultimatums, according to close friends. Before his death, Mgoqi had noticed strangers following him around Bloemfontein and Johannesburg, prompting him to hire security to protect himself.
Centlec has been a contested ground among various political factions within the Mangaung Metropolitan Municipality tussling over the power utility’s multibillion-rand purse – something believed to have been the source of ongoing tensions and spate of killings.
Police spokesperson Sergeant Mahlomola Kareli said they were still investigating and no one had been arrested yet.
Reacting to Mgoqi’s killing, Centlec spokesperson Lele Mamatu described the incident as “very sad”.
In March 2021, the power utility’s board raised alarm over the R23 million contract entered into between Centlec and Vodacom, which according to sources, put Sekoboto and his family on the receiving end of threats. Centlec has frequently been in the news over reports of alleged corruption and mismanagement, which had become common cause.
Recently, the Auditor-General flagged the parastatal for more than R23 million irregular and wasteful expenditure recorded between 2016 and 2019.
Labour dispute
When Mgoqi was not retained by Centlec upon the expiry of his five-year fixed-term contract as CEO on March 31 2020, he instituted a High Court application to compel the power utility to reinstate him to his previous post.
In 2021, Mgoqi launched a court battle in an attempt to stop the Mangaung power utility from appointing someone else to another post of executive manager for engineering wires, which he previously held before his appointment to the CEO post on April 1 2015. He filed an urgent application in the Free State High Court.
His case was founded on a disputed clause in his contract as CEO that essentially entitled him to be placed in the position he occupied prior to his appointment as CEO or be offered an equivalent post upon the expiration of his tenure as CEO.
A few days after he filed the High Court application, Centlec also instituted an application in the Labour Court in which it sought relief declaring that clause void, unlawful or alternatively unenforceable.
Around that time, Mgoqi became aware that Centlec had advertised a vacancy for the position of executive manager for engineering wires.
This advertisement prompted Mgoqi to approach the High Court again on an urgent basis for an interdict to stop Centlec from filling the position pending the final determination of the other two applications.
Centlec was cited as the first respondent and Mangaung Metropolitan Municipality, which owns the entity, as the second.
Centlec – which distributes electricity in areas under the jurisdiction of Mangaung, Kopanong, Naledi, Mantsopa and Mohokare municipalities – opposed the urgent application.
It contended in its heads of argument the position of executive manager for engineering wires constituted 51 percent of its core business and, therefore, the position could not remain vacant while the parties engaged in protracted litigation.
After hearing the case, Judge Pitso Molitsoane concluded the applicant could not insist and was not entitled to a specific position as the clause on which his cause of action was founded made provision for two alternatives.
“Should his prior position be unavailable, he is entitled to be offered another equivalent position. If the position he seeks to interdict is filled, he still has another remedy in the form of alternative appointment to an equivalent position,” the judge noted in his ruling.
According Mgoqi’s lawyers, his case was supposed have been heard last year on November 27 2023 but the matter could not proceed as one of the judges was requested to recuse himself as he once granted the order in favour of Centlec in one of the matters between Centlec and Mgoqi.
The lawyers said the cases had been referred back from the Supreme Court of Appeal in 2023, where leave to appeal was granted in favour of Centlec as there were “prospects of success from an erroneous judgment of Judge Mathebula”.
However, the case was still to be determined by the full bench on the 2nd August 2024. – Addition reporting by The Free Stater and Step Up
