Authenticity of Tshwane Mayor Makwarela’s clearance certificate to be investigated

The City of Tshwane and the Democratic Alliance (DA) in Gauteng have said they will investigate the authenticity of the rehabilitation certificate that led to Murunwa Makwarela being reinstated as Tshwane mayor.

The Congress of the People’s (Cope) Makwarela was reinstated as Tshwane mayor on Thursday, after he handed a notice of insolvency rehabilitation document to City Manager Johann Mettler. The notice was meant to prove he had been rehabilitated from his debt.

On Tuesday, Makwarela was disqualified from holding office after it was revealed that the mayor had been declared insolvent on 2016.

Forged clearance certificate?

There are, however, concerns about the authenticity of the certificate.

Some of the issues raised include spelling errors, the case number cited, a missing high court stamp, and the certificate referring to an “Honourable Mr Justice Moosa” who was not presiding on 7 February 2018, when the document was issued.

The document also states that it comes from the “North Court of South Africa Gauteng division Pretoria”. The correct name for the court is the High Court of South Africa, Gauteng division, Pretoria.

City of Tshwane spokesperson Selby Bokaba confirmed that Mettler has requested the city’s Legal Services to investigate “certain aspects” of the rehabilitation notice that was presented to him by Makwarela.

“This was done as a consequence of various issues that were brought to his attention during the course of [Thursday],” he said.

DA Gauteng leader Solly Msimanga told The Citizen the document looks forged.

“We have been talking to quite a number of experts who are telling us that the certificate that has been provided doesn’t look to be legit. And if it is indeed found this is a fraudulent certificate, we are going to press charges against Dr Makwarela and whoever else is assisting him in this regard because this is defeating the ends of justice.

“We are also reliably informed that there might be people that were part of the initial court case who are now saying that it isn’t possible that Makwarela could have been rehabilitated,” Msimanga said.

ALSO READ: Makwarela returns as Tshwane mayor after proving he’s no longer insolvent

Criminal offence

Msimanga added that forging a court document is a criminal offence.

“This was something that was submitted to a government department. By the way, the other issue is the experts are telling us that if somebody is rehabilitated, there should be an entry in the government gazette which talks to the name of the person being rehabilitated.

“If this hasn’t been done, then the person cannot have been rehabilitated. We have gone through a number of government gazettes and we haven’t been able to track down Dr Makwarela’s name there as having been rehabilitated,” Msimanga said.

Cope response

Cope spokesperson Dennis Bloem told The Citizen the party will engage with Makwarela to get the facts.

“We are going to meet with Mr Makwarela this morning to find out and hear from him about all these reports that are doing the rounds in media and social media and so on, and after that we will have a comprehensive answer,” Bloem said.

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