ANC KwaZulu-Natal heavyweight Mike Mabuyakhulu, now the convener of the provincial task team, has torn into the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), saying the collapsed case against him was spurious from the beginning.
In a candid interview with Sunday World, Mabuyakhulu, affectionately called by his clan name Ndiyema in ANC circles, said the country’s prosecution authority knew from the start that it was clutching at straws when it charged him with fraud and money laundering.
“From the very beginning, I knew that I never committed any acts of corruption.
Precisely because I was 22 years old as a member of the provincial slature. Seventeen of those 22 years, I was an MEC.
“In all those portfolios (I held), there was never an incident where I was accused of being corrupt.” Mabuyakhulu pointed out.
The former KwaZulu-Natal MEC for economic development, tourism, and environmental affairs became the first and remains the only high-profile ANC leader in the province to voluntarily step down after facing graft charges in 2021.
His legal woes were related to his alleged involvement in a music event known as the North Sea Jazz Festival.
The music festival was expected to be staged in 2012 but never materialised.
The NPA had alleged in its court papers that the department, for which Mabuyakhulu served as a political head, had paid more than R28-million to a company named Soft Skills Communication 100 cc.
The company had won the contract to organise the event, which never took place.
The prosecution had asserted that Mabuyakhulu had received kickbacks of R300 000, which he denied.
However, none of the witnesses lined up by the NPA produced evidence to prove its case for the trial, which started in September 2023.
Mabuyakhulu also elaborated on his experience of facing intense and unjust public scrutiny, which led to his portrayal as corrupt despite the absence of any supporting evidence.
“There were actually five charges, three for corruption and two for money laundering. In those five charges, the state pursued this narrative of corruption and money laundering from a completely mistaken view.
“The long and short of it is that the state made allegations.
“When it came to the court, it did not lead even a single witness [who proved] the charges of corruption and money laundering against me.
“The state brought close to 26 witnesses, but none was able to prove the allegations,” Mabuyakhulu told Sunday World.
While Durban High Court Judge Mahendra Chetty cleared Mabuyakhulu, who was charged alongside five senior department officials, of any wrongdoing, the state was adamant that he had a case to answer.
Mabuyakhulu was acquitted based on Section 174 of the Criminal Procedure Act, which empowers a court to discharge an accused without requiring them to testify.
This procedure usually occurs if the court finds that there is no evidence that the accused committed the crime.
“The judgement of Justice Chetty as well as his assessor advocate Wolmarans is absolutely seminal in that the state dismally did not put a shred of evidence on those allegations.
However, that did not satisfy the state. They appealed the first judgement of the 30th of May 2023,” he said.
The Supreme Court of Appeal’s decision to uphold Chetty’s decision not to prosecute Mabuyakhulu was the final blow to the case.
