This after Zwane and his officials allegedly made advance payments of over R500 million from the Free State Housing project worth R1 billion, to various contractors in the 2010/11 financial year.

In part four of the state capture report, handed over to President Cyril Ramaphosa on Friday morning, the commission’s chairperson Raymond Zondo says the former Head of the Department (HOD), and now convict, Mpho Mokoena, and Zwane must be investigated for the scheme which led to the millions paid to contractors.

Also read: Former FS HOD sentenced

It’s alleged that the millions were paid to at least 100 contractors in the alleged scheme. Zondo, in this report, adds that the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) should determine whether it should not charge the former HOD, former MEC and other officials for the advanced payment. However, Zwane previously blamed the departmental officials for the advanced payment.

“It is recommended that the law enforcement agencies should conduct such further investigations as may be necessary to enable the National Prosecuting Authority to determine whether it should not charge Mr Moses Mpho Mokoena, former Head of the Human Settlements Department, Zwane, and other officials with fraud arisen out of the misrepresentation on which the advanced payment scheme was about and to the number of houses that the department said it could build between November/December 2010 and the end of March 2011, which was known to the department not to be true or achievable but was to prevent the National Department of Human Settlements from taking part of their allocated funds and giving them to better-performing provinces,” Zondo says.

In November 2021 OFM News reported that, after the Free State department was accused of fiscal dumping, Mokoena was successfully prosecuted by the NPA.

Also read: Former FS HOD sentenced

Mokoena was sentenced to 10 years for corruption and five years for Contravention of the Public Finance Management Act at the Bloemfontein Magistrate's Court but the sentence was wholly suspended.

He pleaded guilty to all charges levelled against him. 

In the 2010/11 financial year, the department had failed to spend a conditional grant to the tune of R1.4 billion and, as a result, the department was about to forfeit the unspent budget. Following threats to appropriate the unspent budget, the provincial department then promptly and illegally spent at least R500 million on various local contractors who did not perform their duties or had only performed half of the job.

OFM News