A senior education department official and her husband, a former ANC chaplain-general, are being investigated by the Hawks for their involvement in a disastrous R500m school tablets contract.
Dr Naledi Mbude-Mehana, a deputy director-general in the national department of basic education, married Rev Vukile Mehana, the executive chair of Sizwe Africa IT, just months after two payments totalling R330m were made to his company.
The payments, negotiated when Mbude-Mehana was head of department (HoD) of Eastern Cape education in 2021 and 2022, were made despite the tablet contract with Sizwe Africa having been found by the State Information Technology Agency (Sita) to have been unlawful and invalid, and a high court order interdicting the payment from being made.
Mbude-Mehana was suspended in April 2022, shortly before the payments went though. A month later she resigned after reaching an undisclosed settlement with Eastern Cape premier Oscar Mabuyane.
Three months later, in August 2022, she married Mehana in a lavish wedding in Midrand. The nuptials took place just months after Mehana divorced his wife of 32 years.
Mbude-Mehana was last year appointed deputy director-general for special projects, including African language education, at the national department of basic education.
Mehana declined to comment, citing the Hawks investigation.
However Mbude-Mehana told the Sunday Times that she denied any impropriety, claiming she was a victim of attempts to discredit her and undermine her candidacy for a senior position in the basic education department.
She said the payments — R98m on April 25 2022 and R232m on May 26 2022 — were not for the tablets contract, but for “other” contracts Sizwe had with the department.
“It is a lie that any monies were paid while there was a court interdict,” she said. “Not a cent was paid to the interdicted contract. The narrative given to journalists conflating the various schedules is to deliberately mislead the public.
“When I took over as acting HoD for a month in March, the department owed R1.8bn to suppliers as at March 31, the end of the financial year. We didn't have a cent to pay these suppliers, including Sizwe.”
However, the Hawks have questioned the department specifically about these two payments.
Investigators have requested specific documentation, including Mbude-Mehana’s declarations of interest for the financial years 2020/21, 2021/22 and 2022/23, all correspondence with Sizwe IT and any documents related to the authorisation of the settlement.
This is to determine whether Mbude-Mehana had disclosed her relationship with Mehana, who served as both a director and executive chair of Sizwe during the period in question.
Earlier this month, the Hawks wrote to the Eastern Cape education department asking for documents relating to the tablets contract.
The contract to supply 55,000 tablets to pupils with Sizwe IT, a subsidiary of Iqbal Survé's Sekunjalo, was interdicted by Sita, which said it was illegal and should have been procured through them in accordance with the Sita Act. Sita is the state’s designated information technology agency and all procurement for state organs — with the exception of state-owned entities — is done through them.
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Instead, the department piggybacked off an existing IT products and services lease contract between the departments of economic development, environmental affairs and tourism (Dedeat) and Sizwe IT.
The only distinction was the contract's value; it escalated from R160m at Dedeat to R537.4m at the Eastern Cape education department. Additionally, the contract incorporated MTN as a supplier of data SIM cards, each with a monthly four-gigabyte data allowance for 36 months.
The tablets were distributed to 510 quintile 1-3 schools (the poorest schools) between July and October 2020. The department stipulated that “as with textbooks, the tablets and individual SIM sim are to be retrieved from learners at the end of the 2020 academic year and every year thereafter, so that they can be issued to the new cohort of grade 12 learners at the start of the new academic year.”
However, fewer than 8,000 tablets were returned.
In its letter to the Eastern Cape education department, the Hawks said: “This office is busy with an investigation relating to allegations of corruption relating to the settlement agreement for the master rental agreement ... It is humbly requested that the information be accompanied by a section 212 affidavit (to ensure the credibility and veracity of the information provided).”
On Friday, the department released a statement confirming receipt of the letter. It also revealed that the Hawks' investigation stemmed from an ongoing inquiry by the provincial treasury that began in June 2022.
“In a letter dated 8 November 2024, the specialised crimes unit, the Hawks, informed the department they are investigating the Sizwe contract and a request for information was received. The department ... has fully co-operated,” said spokesperson Mlamli Mtima.
However, Mbude-Mehana contended that the investigation should commence with the appointment of Sizwe Africa. She pointed to a former department official, since resigned, who she claimed prepared and signed letters related to the contract.
“They ask the PA for your electronic signatures. There are hundreds of letters to be signed. When I was appointed, I reviewed all contracts and closed them,” said Mbude-Mehana.
To substantiate her claims, she presented a letter signed by the late Dr Soyisile Nuku, who served in an acting capacity in February 2021. In this letter, Nuku committed to settling all outstanding payments owed to Sizwe Africa by March.
Appointed head of department in June 2021, Mbude-Mehana's tenure was abruptly cut short by Mabuyane. Her suspension and subsequent removal were attributed to several factors: underspending of the infrastructure conditional grant, resulting in a R205m return to the treasury, delays in stationery delivery to schools, and delayed processing of payments for educator assistants during the 2021 festive season.
Mbude-Mehana has denied this charge, asserting that the underspending on the infrastructure budget was a direct result of substantial irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure that she uncovered in the infrastructure programme.
An insider at Sita said if any payments were made, it would have been in violation of the court order which stopped all payments and services.
Sita spokesperson Tlali Tlali said that they were not aware of any payments made in April/May 2022 “as this would have occurred after the interdict was granted”.
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Matter-of fact
Facts regarding procurement of IT infrastructure and services by the Eastern Cape department of education
In articles published on December 1 and 15 2024, the Sunday Times and TimesLIVE published articles relating to the procurement of IT infrastructure and services by the Eastern Cape department of education from Sizwe Africa IT, and the purported role of Rev Vukile Mehana (the company’s former executive chairperson) and his wife Dr Naledi Mbude-Mehana (the department’s former head of department) in the process.
At the time of publication, the Sunday Times/TimesLIVE, in the interests of fair reporting and in all instances sought comment from Rev Mehana and Dr Mbude-Mehana, which was duly published.
We had relied on documents, including an exchange of letters between them in the period before a settlement agreement was reached, showing that tablets were included in the settlement negotiations.
In one of the letters, Reverend Mehana proposed to Dr Naledi-Mbude an “all-encompassing settlement that Sizwe, first, would be willing to transfer the tablets and other equipment at no additional cost to the DOE...”
Subsequent to publication of the articles, Rev Mehana and Dr Mbude-Mehana have brought to our attention a document which shows the payment of R330m mentioned in our reporting excluded the tablets contract, which was under a court interdict.
Dr Mbude-Mehana has also pointed out that correspondence regarding a financial settlement between Sizwe Africa and the department was not only between her and the department, but also involved other officials who acted as head of department at various times. She said the impression of collusion for personal benefit between her and Rev Mehana was, therefore, inaccurate.
Rev Mehana subsequently pointed out that, contrary to the impression that may have been created that he was the sole beneficiary of payments to Sizwe Africa, he held only 5% of its shares, with the rest held by other parties.
In relation to the sale of their house in Midrand, Dr Mbude-Mehana and Rev Mehana have disputed the purchase price figure of R7.5m — which was based on what was published on Property 24 by their agent — as being incorrect. We accept this.
Regarding timelines in the Sunday Times/TimesLIVE stories, Dr Mbude Mehana pointed out that she resigned from the department on May 3 2023, and not in May 2022, when she was suspended. Her suspension had nothing to do with the payments to Sizwe Africa.
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