The Democratic Alliance in Gauteng has told The Citizen it will investigate the authenticity of the certificate proving that Tshwane Murunwa Makwarela has been reinstated from insolvency.
The Congress of the People’ s (Cope) Makwarela was reinstated as Tshwane mayor on Thursday, after he handed a notice of insolvency rehabilitation document to City Manager Johann Mettler showing that he had been rehabilitated from his debt.
On Tuesday, Makwarela was disqualified from holding office after it was revealed that the mayor was insolvent.
Forged clearance certificate?
Some of the issues raised with the certificate include grammatical flaws, the case number cited, missing high court stamp including an “Honourable Mr Justice Moosa” who was not presiding on 7 February 2018, when the document was issued, according to reports.
DA Gauteng leader Solly Msimanga claims the document looks forged.
“We have been talking to quite a number of experts who are telling us that the certificate that has been provided doesn’t look to be legit. And if it is indeed found this is a fraudulent certificate we are going to press charges against Dr Makwarela and whoever else is assisting him in this regard because this is defeating the ends of justice.”
“We are also reliably informed that there might be people that were part of the initial court case who are now saying that it isn’t possible that Makwarela could have been rehabilitated,” Msimanga said.
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Criminal offence
Msimanga said forging a court document is a criminal offence.
“This was something that was submitted to a government department. By the way, the other issue is the experts are telling us that if somebody is rehabilitated, there should be an entry in the government gazette which talks to the name of the person being rehabilitated.”
“If this hasn’t been done, then the person cannot have been rehabilitated. We have gone through a number of government gazettes and we haven’t been able to track down Dr Makwarela’s name there as having been rehabilitated,” Msimanga said.
Tshwane reponse
City of Tshwane spokesperson Selby Bokaba confirmed that Mettler has requested Legal Services to investigate “certain aspects” around the rehabilitation notice that was presented to him by Makwarela.
“This was done as a consequence of various issues that were brought to his attention during the course of yesterday,” he said.
Cope response
Cope spokesperson Dennis Bloem told The Citizen, the party will engage with Makwarela to get the facts.
“We are going to meet with Mr Makwarela this morning to find out and hear from him about all this reports that is doing the rounds in media and social media and so on, and after that we will have a comprehensive answer,” Bloem said.
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