Malaika Mahlatsi denies writing PhD for Mzwandile Masina amid love spat fallout

In news that has surprised their followers amid the stringent restrictions on normal life caused by the Covid-19 lockdown, writer, activist, TV presenter and – as it turns out – speechwriter in local government Malaika Mahlatsi has issued a public statement denying accusations levelled against her by her former lover Katlego Mamabolo, the chief director at Rectitude Private Prosecutions.

Among those are that she has been writing a PhD dissertation for Ekurhuleni mayor Mzwandile Masina, her current employer.

She has responded that Mamabolo must have been confused about the reason she had some of Masina’s academic material on her laptop, which she explained was only because she was reviewing a chapter for her boss, not actually writing it. She further challenged Mamabolo to produce the recorded audio evidence he claims to have of her supposedly admitting to the academic fraud.

An increasingly heated public back and forth on Facebook saw Mamabolo posting a photo of Mahlatsi holding sex-play handcuffs and accusing her of pursuing him with several long phone calls.

Mahlatsi is known by the pen name Malaika wa Azania. She published her first book in 2014, titled Memoirs of a Born Free.

Apparently on the advice of her lawyer, she released a long statement on Monday in which she addressed most of what Mamabolo had accused her of. The post has since been taken down through the apparent inactivation of Mahlatsi’s account.

She said that she had entered into a romantic relationship with him towards the end of March, but it “lasted barely two weeks”.

Mahlatsi said the only reason call records would show that the bulk of the calls between them came from her phone. was because she had a Vodacom contract that allowed her to make unlimited calls and Mamabolo was on “prepaid and rarely had airtime to make calls” – so she said it had been “only logical” that she do most of the calling.

She said Mamabolo had come to stay over at “my place in Centurion” for about a week, and they had sex because they “were trying to build a relationship”.

However, when he left to attend a funeral, she sent him a message that she was not interested in him any more after she had done “extensive reflection” on their relationship.

This, according to her, led to him “pleading” with her to give things another chance, and even to go for couples counselling, but “I consistently indicated I was not emotionally available to him”.

She instead advised him to get his own counselling and leave her alone.

Mahlatsi then apparently moved on to another romantic suitor, who she did not name, but said was “the man I want to be with”.

How the accusations started flying

When he sent her a mother’s day message, she said it finally appeared that Mamabolo had accepted she had moved on. This, however, turned out to be short-lived, since she claims he then again asked for another chance with her and, when she again refused, she claimed he took to issuing threats, including that her new boyfriend would be “sorted”.

“He proceeded to send me WhatsApp messages informing me that he would destroy me because I had destroyed him.”

Mahlatsi claimed she advised him to reflect on his actions since he was the founder of a private prosecutions organisation that seeks to provide legal assistance to the victims of gender-based violence. He allegedly told her he did not fear losing his company as losing her had been “the ultimate tragedy in his life and little else mattered”.

Mamabolo then posted pictures on Facebook of their private text conversations and her holding “sexual handcuffs – clothed”.

She said the photo was from when she had been flirting with him and telling him she wanted to use them on him. “This is nothing untoward as adults do engage in such activities,” she added.

What really disturbed her though was Mamabolo’s allegation against her and “the person of my boss”, the Ekurhuleni mayor, Masina.

She responded that she was indeed employed in the mayor’s office as a speechwriter and the mayor was indeed working on his PhD. She has been studying towards a master’s degree and another postgraduate degree.

She said the mayor had done nothing untoward by sending her a chapter of his thesis and asking for her opinion on it. This had been done only with the intention for her to review it and give her opinion, as well as providing input on “grammatical and syntax issues”.

Mamabolo must have come across the chapter on her laptop, she said, because he was apparently using the device repeatedly to watch Netflix while living with her.

“He might have seen this chapter on my computer and made the assumption that I was writing it when in fact I was merely reviewing it and making commentary.”

She said it would in any case have been a “Herculean task” for her to try to write Masina’s dissertation since it was on a topic she knew little about. She accused Mamabolo of advertising his ignorance of scholarship and the research process, and took exception to his claim that she had admitted to him that she was “doing a PhD for my boss”, calling this a “complete fabrication”.

Mahlatsi said Masina was someone who did his academic work “with integrity” and she pointed out that Mamabolo had so far failed to produce his claimed voice note to back up his claims.

Masina’s only response to the matter by Monday morning was that people had been “sold lies” and that he wasn’t about to get involved in other people’s relationships “as if I’m an interested party”.

She said she went to lay a case of crimen injuria and harassment against Mamabolo at the Douglasdale Police Station. Additionally, they were now trying to work out what address Mamabolo was using so her lawyers could serve a letter of demand on him, as “I have every intention of suing him for the false allegations he has levelled against me, the damage to my reputation that he has facilitated and the emotional distress that the ordeal has put me through”.

She said that would be her only public statement on the matter and future correspondence would have to go through her attorneys.

After she wrote her statement, Mamabolo released a statement of his own on Facebook (though his account is now apparently taken down), from both himself and Rectitude Private Prosecutions.

He accused Mahlatsi of “many lies”, including that he had tried to “solicite [sic] funds from her”. He called her “twisted and capable of advancing any lie in pursuit of attention”.

He published further allegations about her and her family, one of which was of a serious criminal nature, and he ended it by saying that “the leadership of Rectitude Private Prosecutions and my legal team have adviced [sic] me to desist from further publishing any material that speaks to these issues, as we will also be approaching the courts to hold people accountable for wild accusations which cannot be proven”.

He further added that Mahlatsi “suffers from a serious mental health condition” and that she should seek “urgent help”.

Mamabolo continued to insist that he had audio evidence to back up his allegations.

“Furthermore I must clarify that my device has an app that generally records all incoming and outgoing calls. We are grateful for the convenience of technology.”

Since posting this and numerous other reactions to and about Mahlatsi, his Facebook profile became publicly unavailable.

In earlier postings he had denied that his company had done work for government and he boasted about having offices in “Africa’s richest square mile” in Sandton.

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