As evidence emerges of governance failures involving a multimillion-rand contract at the construction education & training authority (Ceta), CEO Malusi Shezi is accusing the auditor-general’s (AG) office of being “unfair” to the body.
The Sunday Times can today reveal that Shezi is trying to turn defence into attack by lodging a dispute against aspects of the AG’s financial 2025 audit of the Ceta, which is still under way.
His complaint follows the refusal of the AG’s office to back down on damning findings in the audit about a R124m contract for a skills development centre that was awarded to a Limpopo company that allegedly falsified its bid documents.
However the company itself — Ditlou Suppliers & Services — has now admitted there are “ethical” questions about the contract and decided 10 days ago to voluntarily pull out of it.
That is not my document, I have no idea how my name ended up on it
— Ludic Mahayi, technical services director in Mopani district whose name and signature appears on Ditlou documents
It won the tender after claiming in its bid documents that its previous construction projects included a fire station in Lenyenye near Tzaneen — which turned out not to exist.
The auditors also found that Ceta officials evaluating the bids had overlooked a faulty certification submitted by Ditlou that should have ruled it out of contention.
Ceta’s bid evaluation committee only discovered the apparent lie about the fire station when it conducted a due diligence visit almost a month after the contract was awarded.
The government official whose name and signature appeared on the Ditlou documents, Ludic Mahayi, told the evaluation committee he knew nothing about a fire station.
Mahayi, a technical services director in the Mopani district under which Lenyenye falls, told the Sunday Times: “That is not my document, I have no idea how my name ended up on it. What I am telling you now about that document I also shared with the Ceta when they reached out to me.”
However Shezi apparently took no remedial action until the AG raised another anomaly in the contract.
Shezi then fired off a furious complaint to the office of the AG accusing its staff of being “unethical” and “unprofessional” and engaging in “unfair audit practices” and listing about 20 findings to which he objected.
He cited what he said was the identification of additional audit risks that the auditors had not previously raised with the Ceta, “total disregard of standardised systems of internal controls” and a “nonchalant attitude” demonstrated by the auditors.
“We further ... confirm that we will be declaring a dispute with the AGSA [AG of South Africa] team which will be communicated to National Treasury, especially on matters regarding irregular expenditure and fruitless and wasteful expenditure,” Shezi’s complaint said.
“Other matters regarding unfair audit practices and professionalism will be referred to Independent Regulatory Board for Auditors, as well as the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants.”
Despite Shezi’s attitude in the complaint, two weeks ago the Ceta sent a letter to Ditlou asking the company to explain aspects of the bid.
In its response, seen by the Sunday Times, the board of directors said Ditlou was pulling out of the contract. The tender documents in question had been compiled by a staff member who left the company in May.
“We sat as a board of directors on July 31 2025 and resolved ... that in the interest of ethical business conduct, we should withdraw from further participation in the project,” the response said.
“We unreservedly apologise for any inconvenience this might have caused.”
Ditlou director Kabelo Masebe told the Sunday Times this week that the company had not started work on the contract yet and therefore had received no money from the Ceta.
“We wish to affirm that there has been no deliberate misrepresentation of information on the part of the company,” Masebe said. “Upon identifying the anomalies, the company acted responsibly and withdrew from the project in a principled and transparent manner.”
It is conducting an internal investigation into what went wrong.
AGSA told the Sunday Times its “2024-25 audit of the Ceta is still in process and has not been concluded. As the AGSA, we do not comment on an audit that has not been concluded.”
It acknowledged there had been a delay in the audit, and this “is being handled by the two parties in line with the AGSA’s audit processes. The national audit office is committed to carrying out its constitutional mandate impartially, without fear, favour or prejudice to all those we audit.”
Correspondence related to the Ditlou contract, leaked to the Sunday Times from within the Ceta, show AGSA had refused to budge on the issue.
“Inquiries were made with the municipality directly and the municipality confirmed that they are not aware of any award having been made for the construction of a fire station in Lenyenye,” the AGSA said.
“Based on the above, the service provider should have been disqualified at the functionality stage as they did not meet minimum requirements. The contract is therefore irregular and all expenditure incurred should be disclosed as such in the annual financial statements.”
Neither the Ceta nor Shezi, who is embroiled in a defamation matter against the Sunday Times, responded to questions.
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