Three Porsches and a Lamborghini Urus of Hamilton Ndlovu’s car collection were auctioned off by Park Village Auctions this week. Pictures: X and Park Village Auctions
Four vehicles from the much-bragged-about luxury fleet of personal protective equipment (PPE) fraud-accused Thabiso Hamilton Ndlovu finally went under the hammer on Wednesday, 28 August.
The auction, facilitated by Park Village Auctions in Johannesburg, was held virtually with Ndlovu’s bright yellow Lamborghini Urus 4.0 V8 stealing the show.
The bidding for the Hamilton Holdings CEO’s luxury high-performance sports SUV, which began at R3 million, lasted all of four minutes…
The 2019 Lambo Urus fetched a staggering R4.345 million, which is roughly R1 million more than what Park Village Auctions had expected earlier this week.
The model sold on auction has 31,395km on the clock and features a V8 engine, yellow paint wrap, black sports rims, and red leather seats.
“These vehicles are certainly the star of the show as there are not many of them in the country. It has been advised at a value of close to R7 million down to R4 million. It’s an unusual vehicle,” Graham van Niekerk of Park Village Auctions told SNL24.
“When you drive out, you can see a Porsche Panamera and a Porsche 911, but rarely this one on the road. It’s a car that stands out.”
The Urus, a 2020 Porsche 911 Carrera, 2019 Porsche Panamera GTS Sport and a 2020 Porsche Cayenne S Coupe from Ndlovu’s sleek garage were auctioned off to a total value of about R8.5 million.
The Carrera was sold for R1.8 million while the Panamera was gone in two minutes for R1.36 million. The Cayenne went under the hammer for R1.23 million.
ALSO READ: The fast and the fraudulent: Hamilton Ndlovu’s supercar fleet to go under hammer
The auction was the state’s third attempt at recouping about R172 million that Ndlovu scored in 19 unlawful personal protective equipment (PPE) tenders awarded by the National Health Laboratory Service (NHLS) in 2020.
The contracts were awarded to eight companies owned by or linked to Ndlovu and his wife.
The National Prosecuting Authority’s Special Investigating Unit (SIU) later found that only around R15 million was used to buy PPE for the NHLS.
In September 2021, the SIU and the NHLS obtained a Special Tribunal order to prohibit Ndlovu from disposing of his assets, valued at R42 million.
The Citizen previously reported that the 35-year-old engineering solutions company CEO also owes the taxman millions.
In 2023, his luxury Bryanston mansion was auctioned off for R7.1 million while bank accounts which belong to some of the companies linked to him, were frozen.
The ostentatious millionaire caused quite a stir two years ago on social media when he uploaded videos of his new fleet of luxury cars which he bought in the span of a day.
The estimated value of the five coveted luxury vehicles which he bought for himself, and his family members, totalled about R10 million.
Ultimately, the viral videos uploaded by the tax-shy Ndlovu also caught the eye of the SA Revenue Service (Sars) and the Hawks. Ndlovu allegedly last paid his taxes in 2016.
In September 2020, Sars executed a provisional preservation order against businessman Hamilton Ndlovu and his companies, seizing three of his Porsches and freezing over R6 million in his bank accounts, according to the Daily Maverick.
In May 2021, the preservation order granted to Sars was confirmed by acting Deputy Judge President of the Gauteng division Roland Sutherland at the Gauteng High Court in Pretoria.
“Apparently, there are people at Sars who… follow social media. They looked into his tax affairs and were impressed that Ndlovu had spared Sars the burden of reading any tax returns since 2016.
“They referred the big spender to the Illicit Economy Unit who have a keen interest in mismatched income and expenditure phenomena.”
The SIU, which was tasked to investigate allegations of corruption, malpractice and irregularities in the procurement of goods and services during the Covid-19 state of disaster, found that Ndlovu was involved in corruption, which led to him being awarded PPE tenders.
During a ruling on 7 June 2022, Judge Lebogang Modiba ordered the auction or sale of all assets owned by Ndlovu and his affiliated companies to reclaim the outstanding debt owed to the NHLS.
Ndlovu is among the numerous benefactors of corrupt contracts to supply products and services to the government during the Covid-19 pandemic.
According to a 2022 Bloomberg report, the lengthy SIU probe into dodgy Covid-19 contracts found that 2,803 of 5,467 health equipment deals worth about R14.3 billion were improper.
The investigation was authorised by President Cyril Ramaphosa in mid-2020 after he asked the Auditor-General (AG) to look into the tenders.
The AG’s report on the issue found that the government failed to implement efficient spending controls over the R500 billion allocated for relief funds.
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