Seven suspects – together with native govt officers and a former African Crowd Congress (ANC) spokesperson – were charged with fraud in a South African court docket.

The defendants gave the impression in court docket following an investigation right into a 27 million rand (£1.2m; $1.6m) govt gentle.

The investigation discovered that 5 years in the past the provincial govt in Gauteng signed a commitment with an organization named Enviro-Mobi for wastage control products and services.

Enviro-Mobi didn’t expose that it had hyperlinks to ex-ANC spokesperson Pule Mabe, who used to be an MP on the age, a police commentary stated.

Mabe and the others weren’t requested to go into pleas.

Then again, he instructed native media he used to be stepping indisposed from the ANC’s govt committee, however “not because he is guilty”.

Mabe and his spouse gave the impression in court docket next handing themselves into South Africa’s elite police unit, the Hawks.

5 alternative defendants – together with two executives from Guateng’s provinicial govt – additionally gave the impression on the court docket, in Ekurhuleni, a municipality simply east of the town of Johannesburg.

All seven folks have been awarded bail.

The commitment in query stipulated that Enviro-Mobi will have to obtain in advance bills and that cash will have to best be passed to the corporate next a portion of its paintings used to be finished, police spokesperson Thandi Mbambo stated.

Then again, the Hawks’ investigation discovered that Gauteng’s Section of Agriculture paid Enviro-Mobi 25 million rand for 200 cars, even supposing the products have been “still in the possession of the service provider”.

It’s not the primary age Mabe, who served because the ANC’s spokesperson from 2018 to 2023, has been accused of corruption.

At the side of two others, he used to be arrested in 2013 over allegations he had defrauded the South African Social Safety Company (Sassa). The trio have been upcoming cleared of all fees.

And in 2017 Mabe used to be fined next a parliamentary committee discovered that he had benefited from a commitment with the state-owned rail corporate.