Hard labour: How Letsoalo put his bodyguards to work

Damning pictures and video evidence have sharply reinforced claims by former Road Accident Fund (RAF) CEO Collins Letsoalo’s bodyguards that they were made to work as labourers on his plush estate outside Pretoria.

“We were there to protect him, but we were forced to work like his personal farmhands,” one source said under the cloak of anonymity.

According to the guards, they were required to attend to goats and chickens, haul materials for a new boundary fence and slaughter livestock. The footage shows the men — paid by the taxpayer for high-stakes protection — performing menial, exhausting chores and working a drilling machine.

Sources close to the bodyguards describe a regime marked by fear and exhaustion.

Letsoalo has insisted that the millions spent irregularly on bodyguards were necessary to protect his and his family’s lives from death threats.

This week, despite being presented with the physical evidence of the guards mending fences at his Pretoria farm, Letsoalo maintained this was not the case. He claimed the pictures were taken illegally and said he would take action against the guards.

The claims were first heard during a RAF hearing under way in parliament by the standing committee on public accounts (Scopa), which Letsoalo continued to boycott this week.

Earlier in 2025, the Sunday Times revealed allegations that Letsoalo had spent more than R10m in public funds on his security detail over three years, including a R4m armoured BMW X5.

His security arrangements made him the most heavily protected public servant in the country after President Cyril Ramaphosa and his deputy, Paul Mashatile. He was also provided with three VW Golf 8 GTIs costing between R800,000 and R1m, along with nine bodyguards. The vehicles were provided by the RAF board.

The Sunday Times traced several of the bodyguards, who spoke on condition of anonymity about their ordeal.

“My man, we were abused, I never thought in my life I would ever work on a farm because I am a trained protector. Our job every day was to build his fence, attend to his chickens, goats and cattle.

“We knew every weekend when we go to work, we are going to work on those things. We would even go and buy feed for those animals. When they are sick you must take them to the vet. We even had to slaughter them,” said one bodyguard.

If they called in sick, Letsolao would get angry and write messages on their WhatsApp group.

Letsoalo this week denied making his bodyguards work on his plot.

“Close protectors have a duty to secrecy and confidentiality, as contained in their oath of secrecy. The code of conduct at the RAF expects employees to adhere to confidentiality of information got in the execution of their duties ...

“My plot has an electric fence surrounding it. To my knowledge, no close protector of mine possessed any qualification to mend an electric fence. I also know that I have never, and will never, instruct any protector to act outside what is expected of them.”

However, the footage shows the men performing various chores. In one video, a bodyguard stands rigidly in his crisp uniform. In another, he is knee-deep in mud, or hammering a fence post into the soil.

“If we complained, the threats were clear: lose your job,” said a bodyguard.

Another guard told the Sunday Times there was never any threat against Letsoalo or his family. As an example, he recounted an occasion when Letsoalo and his wife attended a concert at a stadium.

“We were left outside the stadium. How are we supposed to guard a person who is inside the stadium when we are outside? In our previous jobs, if we went to a concert they would also buy tickets and food for us inside the venue, so we can see the person we are guarding.”

The Sunday Times previously reported that there was no evidence provided by Letsoalo to the RAF, the state security agency (SSA) or the department of transport of any security threat to his or his family’s lives.

This week, Letsoalo said he had reported the alleged threats to his life, but declined to provide a case number.

However, he said RAF security head Stephens Msiza was aware of the case and that he had made several reports to the SSA, as well as former transport minister Fikile Mbalula and former director-general Alec Moemi.

He said he was aware of a plot by Msiza and others to implicate him in wrongdoing and to turn his former bodyguards against him.

Msiza told Scopa that he was informed by Letsoalo that there was a threat to his life.

“The former CEO informed me on January 30, 2024, that there was a ‘hit against his life’ and that he needed an armoured vehicle. An armoured vehicle ... was bought through the supply chain management process for R4.4m.

“It was a relief because I knew it was going to reduce the number of close protectors deployed. When I told him about reducing the number to two close protectors, I was attacked and told that the vehicle procured exposes him when he has to open a gate at his girlfriend’s estate,” Msiza told Scopa.

Msiza also confirmed to Scopa that the protectors were abused by Letsoalo and forced to work on his farm, saying they had to “report to his residence early in the morning and remain outside for the entire day, often under harsh weather conditions, without access to ablution facilities or resting areas.

“Officers raised repeated complaints about being instructed to perform duties unrelated to their security function, including farm-related work such as fetching equipment, watering livestock and transporting farming materials,” Msiza said.

Letsoalo led the RAF from 2020, before being suspended in June 2025 for refusing to appear before Scopa. His contract expired while he was on suspension.

Letsoalo faces possible criminal prosecution after again failing to appear before Scopa this week. The committee — which has set up an inquiry into allegations of financial mismanagement at the RAF — has been unable to serve a summons on Letsoalo to appear before it.

Defending his absence, Letsoalo said the committee was trying to serve the summons at his postal address. He cited threats to his safety as the reason for not providing details of his residential address.

“I told you people want to kill me. Why would I publicise my address? The threats don’t go simply because I have ceased being a CEO of the RAF.”

His legal representatives had offered to receive summonses on his behalf, he said.