A businessman whose company has benefited from a long list of major government contracts is at the centre of a Hawks probe into alleged illicit payments of R2.7bn in an R18bn Prasa tender.
A whistleblower report says the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa paid the R2.7bn to “non-existing joint ventures (JVs)” — Crig Maziya and Macre — involved in the signalling Prasa's system contract.
The allegation prompted an urgent board meeting at the agency on Friday.
Transport minister Barbara Creecy’s office alerted the rail agency’s board to the whistleblower report, which was sent to police minister Senzo Mchunu’s office last month.
It listed several payments allegedly made to Maziya General Services, a company owned by Chris Delport, which has won contracts from a range of government departments and state-owned entities. Last year parliament appointed it to carry out demolition work at the National Assembly building, which burnt down in 2022.
In the Prasa contract, at least R791m was paid in two tranches on December 14 and December 21 2023 to Maziya because Crig Maziya JV and Macre JV did not have bank accounts.
The ministry of police will be escalating the matter to the DPCI for criminal investigation. It is regarded as crucial to share this information
— Department of transport
While Prasa this week insisted the companies were compliant, an e-mail in the whistleblower’s dossier, sent by a Prasa official, says staff at the agency were aware that there were no bank accounts for the two JVs and that this posed an audit risk.
The whistleblower claims the payments were made to Delport’s company because the JV partners had no tax clearance certificates and other documents required for the signalling bid, issues that should have disqualified them.
The whistleblower alleges the JVs were front companies for Delport and that the payments were possibly kickbacks meant for unnamed ANC officials, Prasa board members and executives.
“The recent fraudulent payments of R1,768,490,730 and R922,416,107, totalling [R2.69bn], were unlawfully paid to Maziya General Services, while payments of R209,601,225 and R49,135,785 were paid to Ground Transportation System Maziya without a contract,” said the whistleblower.
“All these payments were made to companies belonging to Chris Delport, without valid appointment letters (awards), directly linked to Maziya General Services as an individual company approved by Prasa …
“It is also alleged that most of the fraudulent advance payments listed above made to Maziya General Services were paid to prominent politicians in the ANC and other Prasa board members in exchange for favours for positions and tenders to advance political ambitions and self-serving interests,” said the whistleblower.
Mchunu’s office immediately passed on the allegations to the Directorate of Priority Crime Investigation.
“Yes, the matter has been referred to the DPCI and an inquiry has been registered for investigation by the Serious Economic Offences Unit,” said Hawks spokesperson Brig Nomthandazo Mbambo.
The Sunday Times has seen correspondence between the offices of Mchunu and Creecy dated February 19, in which it was noted that failing to investigate the allegations could damage Prasa’s image.
“The ministry of police will be escalating the matter to the DPCI for criminal investigation. It is regarded as crucial to share this information,” the transport department said in a briefing note to Prasa.
“It is recommended that the matter be referred to the chairman of the board to prepare a formal response for the minister’s signature.”
Contacted by the Sunday Times, Delport said he could not comment on the detailed questions sent to him, but insisted the JVs had been properly appointed.
A close associate of Delport’s, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of reprisal, said there was no truth in the allegations in the whistleblower’s report.
“Maziya’s problems started when the company was appointed to do the demolition job in parliament. There is not a single government contract that was left incomplete or with controversy by Maziya, it has a good track record. These are all lies and the documentation is there with Prasa which can prove [it],” said the associate.
Prasa told the Sunday Times said the two JVs were appointed through an open tender process and that both were compliant.
“The Prasa board takes whistleblower allegations seriously and accordingly ... the first step will be to appoint an independent investigation,” said Prasa spokesperson Andiswa Makanda.
“The process via which the tender process was conducted is subject to external probity and the tenders in question passed [this] process.”
Prasa has been plagued by scandals over the years, most involving corruption, mismanagement and a general decline in service delivery. There has been leadership instability since the firing of former group CEO Lucky Montana in 2015, with allegations of political meddling and the diversion of taxpayer funds to a politically connected elite. Some of the prominent scandals include:
SWIFAMBO — a corrupt contract for the procurement of Afro4000 locomotives from Spain that were too tall for South Africa’s rail infrastructure.
CORRUPTION AND IRREGULARITIES
• Ongoing investigations by the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) have uncovered widespread corruption in Prasa’s procurement processes, including contracts for security, infrastructure upgrades, and other services.
• 'Ghost employees' and fraudulent liability claims have also been identified, resulting in significant financial losses.
• Former chief engineer Daniel Mtimkulu was jailed for faking his qualifications; it was on his watch that the mismatched trains were ordered from Spain.
SECURITY AND SAFETY CONCERNS
• The deterioration of Prasa’s infrastructure has led to increased safety risks for commuters, including open train doors and inadequate security, and to frequent delays.
• Many court cases have resulted in Prasa being ordered to pay damages to passengers due to negligence.
FINANCIAL MISMANAGEMENT
• Prasa has faced severe financial difficulties, with reports of mismanagement and irregular expenditure.
• The agency’s inability to effectively manage its finances has contributed to the decline in service delivery and the deterioration of its infrastructure.
— A timeline of controversy
She said payments were made to Maziya’s bank accounts instead of to the JVs because the JVs had requested this.
“It’s worth noting that Prasa’s tender process follows a regulated three-stage bid committee procurement process. Both JVs successfully passed all stages of the bid evaluation and were recommended as the preferred bidders.
“Prasa verified that both JVs met the requirements set out in the RFP [request for proposals].”
However, in a December 6 2023 e-mail seen by the Sunday Times, a Prasa official said the payments to the Maziya account would be a one-time-only transaction.
“So essentially by the time the second payment would be due, then the unincorporated JV would be compliant with administrative requirements,” the e-mail says.
“This means that for the purposes of the mobilisation payment we will have two payments for two separate projects happening only once to the nominated account. The remainder of the 5% each per project would be paid to the JV.”
The author of the e-mail asks for clarity about the arrangements.
Senior officials confirmed payments were to be made to the nominated Maziya bank account, and the R791m — made up of sums of R289m and R501m — was paid to Maziya later that month.
However, in 2024 there seemed to be delays in payments, and some officials asked if they could make further payments to the same Maziya account, despite the original one-off payment arrangement.
“Dear gentlemen, have we identified where the problem is for non-paying the second half of R1bn KZN resignalling and when are we going to pay it?” asked an official in an e-mail.
The official was assured that a payment would be made and as a result the same bank account received more payments between October and December 2024.
According to the whistleblower, officials in Prasa devised a scheme in August 2023 to award Crig Maziya and Macre the R18bn signal contract for Prasa stations.
The signalling system is one of the most important components of a railway because safe train management depends on it.
“The use of various JV names is merely a camouflage as the name Macre JV refers to [an acronym for] Maziya General Services, China Rail International and China Wuhan Engineering ... and the other one, Crig Maziya JV, is equally the same JV but different submissions for different tenders,” said the whistleblower.
According to the Companies & Intellectual Property Commission database, both companies were registered in May 2022 with Delport and Abdul Baker, a South African businessman, as directors.
Baker resigned from both companies the following year and Delport remained as sole director.
There is no indication in the records of either company of involvement of Chinese or foreign directors.
According to news reports last year Maziya has a track record of spiralling costs and timelines extending far beyond initial estimates during government contracts.
The reports claimed that in 2018 the Competition Commission fined Maziya R300,000 for colluding on a City Power tender with Cromico Trading — a company directed by Delport’s daughter, Robyn Hazel Delport.
Maziya agreed to a settlement and committed to a competition law compliance programme, but did not admit to any wrongdoing or liability.
Prasa is one of the many state-owned enterprises hollowed out by years of corruption and mismanagement linked to state capture. Last year, the auditor-general found R3.8bn in irregular expenditure at the agency.
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