In a brazen bid to take control of lucrative building contracts, alleged associates of notorious Cape Town gang boss Ralph Stanfield allegedly threatened top City of Cape Town officials in their offices, warning them to hand over contracts.
The meeting came just five days after a city official was murdered at a R500m construction site in Delft on the Cape Flats.
Stanfield's sidekicks allegedly unlawfully entered the mayoral office complex in broad daylight, demanding of human settlements department official Xolani Joja that all municipal construction projects be handed over to Glomix, a company controlled by Stanfield. Joja’s office is on the same floor as that of Cape Town mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis.
During the encounter, which took place on February 21 and is being investigated by the police as a case of intimidation, Joja was warned that “the same thing that happened to (Cape Town official) Wendy Kloppers would happen at all other city construction sites”.
Kloppers was shot dead while sitting in her car at the Delft site on February 16.
Police spokesperson FC van Wyk confirmed they were investigating the claims, which have shone a light on the sinister workings of a ruthless construction mafia that has been identified as a major new crime area.
Safety and security mayoral committee member JP Smith told the Sunday Times that 77 cases of intimidation of public representatives within the council, city staff and city-linked contractors had been registered since January. He said Joja’s complaint was one of those.
Contractors working on construction sites across the city have come under attack as gangsters have expanded from drug dealing to extortion.
The three Stanfield associates — Riaan Koeberg, Donovan Koopman and Mario Brand — claimed to represent Group 4 Developers (G4D), a nonprofit company which, according to Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC) documents, began operating on April 5 with the trio as its directors.
We were purely there [at Joja’s office] because we have a big problem with housing and how it is handled in the Western Cape. We asked that projects be stopped because they are giving the wrong people houses
— Riaan Koeberg, associate of Ralph Stanfield
Several councillors across Cape Town have since also opened cases of intimidation against Koeberg after G4D arrived at housing projects in Mitchells Plain and Eersterivier and threatened them.
In a video titled ‘Firm warning to the mayor’ posted on G4D’s Facebook page in July, Koeberg can be seen confronting Joja during a protest in Mitchells Plain and referring to the February incident.
“Do I look familiar?” he asks Joja, who is surrounded by a crowd of community members. “I was the one barging into your office unannounced, without any appointment. Do you remember me?”
In the video, he addresses Hill-Lewis saying: “I’m warning you ... if I ever see you set foot in Mitchells Plain as the mayor, you will see what will happen to you”.
Pointing towards Joja, he then says: “I’m even warning human settlements. If they ever set foot in Mitchells Plain again, there is [no] guarantee that they will go out here alive.”
When contacted for comment, Koeberg denied demanding that sites be handed over to Glomix.
“We were purely there (at Joja’s office) because we have a big problem with housing and how it is handled in the Western Cape. We asked that projects be stopped because they are giving the wrong people houses.”
Koeberg did not deny his ties to Stanfield, saying he had acted as a mediator for the alleged crime boss in connection with several housing developments.
Stanfield and his wife, Nicole Johnson, are in custody awaiting trial for attempted murder, robbery and assault. They were arrested at their upmarket Constantia home on September 29. The case relates to an altercation they had with an employee they claimed skimmed R1.3m from the cash he was supposed to feed into an ATM they own in Bishop Lavis.
Koopman told the Sunday Times this week their words to Joja were not meant as threats, but rather as an “offer to mediate” between the city and the construction mafia.
He said their inflammatory language was not meant to be taken literally, but acknowledged that in a climate where city officials were being murdered it could be seen as threatening.
“We're almost like a Julius (Malema) party,” he said.
“What we basically discussed with [the officials was] the city's response to the housing needs in the Western Cape. We were an organisation that wanted to join hands with the City of Cape Town and with the province, because at that stage there was an investigation into Malusi Booi.”
Booi was axed as human settlements mayoral committee member after a police raid on his office in March. The investigation into Booi is believed to be linked to the construction mafia operating in the Western Cape and the irregular award of tenders to build low-cost housing. No arrests have been made so far.
Hill-Lewis said at the time that he had been briefed by the police on the investigation and had then removed Booi from his position immediately.
Booi this week denied any involvement in irregular tenders, but refused to comment further.
Koopman said: “We said we don't want the same thing to happen that happened to Malusi Booi. We want the City of Cape Town to be accountable for housing in the Western Cape.
“We went for one reason — to ensure that the projects which are standing still should move forward.
“We can even go into areas where they can't and say to the gangsters: 'Look here, gentlemen, what is it you really want? We want the houses to be finished, but you're holding [the project] up.'”
Koopman said he was ideally placed to speak to gangsters because he used to be in prison.
“I'm not involved in gangs any more. [But] I come from gangs in Atlantis, so I know their modus operandi.
“I have never met with Ralph Stanfield. I'm not with G4D any more, so I can't discuss anything that was said or done after that meeting.”
Koeberg described Stanfield as a legitimate businessman and said he had previously communicated to Hill-Lewis that the city should consider giving subcontracts to his companies.
He said he then approached Stanfield in the “interests of the community” so that housing projects — some of which were halted owing to shootings at construction sites aimed at intimidating contractors — could be completed by Stanfield’s companies.
He said it was common knowledge Stanfield controlled several construction projects, though his companies were not directly involved.
The gangsters’ objectives are to force contractors to pay extortion fees to business forums and their affiliated security companies, and to intimidate contractors into leaving construction sites, or dissuade them from applying for tenders, so their own companies can be awarded contracts.
Hill-Lewis did not directly respond to questions from the Sunday Times. However, the city said: “Security contracts are definitely a motive for extortion, but there are multiple other motives that include the demand to use specific local labourers, [the] demand to use specific local contractors, [the] demand [that] housing [be] handed over to select people, and [the demand] to [have] influence [over] the appointment of community liaison officers for large-scale contracts.”
A demand to use specific local contractors was allegedly made at the Valhalla Park community housing development, where the contractor was forced to evacuate the site, which is in a neighbourhood controlled by the 28s. Companies of which Stanfield was a director have been involved in the Valhalla Park housing project.
Two senior City of Cape Town officials, who asked not to be named for safety reasons, said Glomix and 15 other companies with links to Stanfield had managed to infiltrate the provincial and local government through both corruption and deception.
Joja refused to comment when approached by the Sunday Times, saying “it is a city matter”.
When asked about the February incident, the city said questions about it “and other extortion-related cases” should be referred to the police.
They also said it was not the city, but rather the Western Cape government, that awarded the contracts at Valhalla Park, using money provided by the city.
“Therefore, Glomix was never on the city’s system, and the city’s human settlements directorate never contracted with them.”
The city said it had cancelled two other contracts with “companies it found to be associated with or linked to Ralph Stanfield”.
Ntobeko Mbingeleli, spokesperson for infrastructure MEC Tertuis Simmers, said Glomix was registered on the provincial government’s service provider database “like any other service provider intending to do business with the Western Cape government”.
“They are equally registered with all the relevant National Treasury databases.”
He said Western Cape infrastructure department records indicated no contracts had been awarded to Glomix during the current or last financial year.
“[Its] status is suspended due to an expired document. A company can only be removed from the databases for lawful and legitimate reasons relating to underperformance, proven criminality, and the like,” he said.
According to the city, interference with contractors and extortion attempts have set various projects back “weeks and months”, and the delays “may affect the city’s capital expenditure targets”.
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