ActionSA Demands Probe Into R16m eThekwini Tender Linked to Sandton ‘Bullet’ Businessman

ActionSA is pushing eThekwini Municipality to open a full investigation into a R16 million tender awarded to a company once chaired by Lawrence Chamurwa Mudzinganyama, the businessman who was arrested after a video of him threatening women at a Sandton restaurant went viral last week.

Zwakele Mncwango, ActionSA’s KwaZulu-Natal leader and the party’s mayoral candidate for eThekwini, wrote to city manager Musa Mbhele demanding answers about Contract WS-7792, awarded to Moriel Infrastructure Group for the construction of the North Park Sewer Reticulation, Tie-In and Associated Works. The project covers new sewer pipelines in Queensburgh and Northdene, near the North Park Nature Reserve, connecting into existing bulk lines that carry sewage to the Umhlatuzana Wastewater Treatment Works.

What the Contract Covers

According to eThekwini’s own procurement records, the contract was awarded at R16,105,433.75. Factoring in price escalation and contingencies, standard practice for infrastructure work of this size, the total approved project value climbs to just over R19.3 million including VAT. The municipality says the contract started in May 2025, runs until November 2026, and is now 95% complete.

Mncwango’s Information Requests

Mncwango wants more than the numbers. In his letter, he asked for the full tender record: every bidder and their scores, the reports from the Bid Evaluation Committee and Bid Adjudication Committee, payments made to date, any variations to the contract, subcontractor details, Moriel’s CIDB grading, and whatever due diligence the municipality carried out on the company and its directors before signing off on the deal. He also asked whether Moriel holds any other contracts or purchase orders with the city.

“With national authorities reportedly examining the company’s dealings with other organs of state, eThekwini cannot remain silent about its own relationship with the company,” Mncwango said, adding that if voters put him in charge of the city after the November 4 elections, he would see the investigation through.

eThekwini Stands Firm on the Contract

eThekwini has so far held its ground. The municipality says the contract stands and will continue to be managed under the Municipal Finance Management Act, regardless of what happens to the man who once chaired the company doing the work.

The Sandton Restaurant Incident

The scrutiny traces back to the night of September 18, when Mudzinganyama was filmed confronting a group of women in the ladies’ bathroom of the Vlamo restaurant at Sandton Gate in Glenadrienne. According to the Justice, Crime Prevention and Security cluster, one of the women was attending a private birthday dinner when Mudzinganyama approached the group and offered to take photographs. What followed, captured on video and shared widely online, showed him threatening to shoot them. “I could put a bullet in you now. I do not play. I will murder you now and walk,” he is heard saying, before telling the women he was wealthy enough that nothing would happen to him if he did.

The footage landed at a particularly raw moment for the country. It surfaced within weeks of the discovery of the bodies of nine women in Ekurhuleni, and the timing sharpened the public reaction. Sindisiwe Chikunga, the minister in the Presidency for women, youth and persons with disabilities, called on Mudzinganyama to hand himself in. “No matter how a woman rejects you, it does not entitle you to harm her,” she said, warning that his money wouldn’t shield him from the law. Police Minister Firoz Cachalia echoed the point, calling the threats unlawful and telling reporters his officers had a clear directive to bring the case home. Cachalia also asked the Department of Home Affairs to look into Mudzinganyama’s immigration status, given he is Zimbabwean.

Mudzinganyama’s Arrest and Court Appearance

Mudzinganyama handed himself over to police at the Randburg station on September 21. Deputy national police commissioner Lieutenant-General Tebello Mosikili confirmed he was released on a warning and is due back in the Randburg Magistrate’s Court on October 1 to face an intimidation charge. In a statement afterward, Mudzinganyama apologised “unreservedly” to the women involved, calling his language “unjustifiable and unacceptable, regardless of the circumstances that led to the disagreement.”

The fallout moved fast on the corporate side too. Moriel’s board terminated Mudzinganyama’s association with the company “as Executive Chairman and as a director, with immediate effect,” saying he would no longer speak for or act on behalf of the firm in any capacity. The company said his conduct was inconsistent with its values and condemned violence against women outright. Steyn City Properties, where Mudzinganyama had been renting, cancelled his lease the same weekend.

Sanral and Water Department Scrutiny

Government departments moved on a separate track. Transport Minister Barbara Creecy instructed the South African National Roads Agency Limited to investigate whether Moriel had been lawfully appointed as a contractor and whether it was meeting its obligations under that agreement. Sanral said it would comply. The Department of Water and Sanitation, for its part, tried to distance itself from the controversy. Pressed by ActionSA’s Malebo Kobe in a parliamentary portfolio committee meeting, director-general Sean Phillips said his department had no contract with Moriel at all, and that the only known link was the company’s agreement with eThekwini.

How the Tender Became Public

That eThekwini link is what pushed the story into local government. The tender document itself first became public on September 21, when March and March leader Jacinta Ngobese-Zuma posted it on social media, prompting the question that has now landed on the city manager’s desk: how a company chaired by a man facing a criminal charge, and now facing scrutiny from two national departments, came to hold a multimillion-rand sewer contract with one of the country’s largest municipalities.

For now, eThekwini isn’t budging on the work itself, insisting the contract will run its course under existing rules. Whether Mncwango’s letter turns into a formal probe, and what it might uncover about how the tender was awarded, is likely to become one of the more closely watched threads of a scandal that started with a video in a restaurant bathroom.