‘We're Coming For You!'

That’s the message to criminals from Hawks spokesperson Hangwani Mulaudzi. He spoke to YOU about the demands of the job

- Nasifa Sulaiman

His skin is as tough as the bulletproof vests his colleagues wear – it has to be as he’s often accused of being “a puppet”, branded as “useless” or dismissed as having been captured”.

But the name-calling doesn’t bother Brigadier Hangwani Mulaudzi in the least. As the public face of the elite crime-busting unit the Hawks, the 49-year-old spokesperson firmly believes the work of the unit is more important than his ego.

“I carry myself as a person with integrity and I don’t involve myself in any form of corruption,” he says. He knows he’s an easy target for critics, but it comes with the territory and its water off a duck’s back, he says.

However, these days Hangwani and the Hawks are very much in the public’s good books following the arrest of seven suspects involved in the R225 million asbestos-audit tender scandal in the Free State.

After months of investigation and working closely with the Zondo Commission, the Hawks nabbed the suspects on charges of fraud, corruption, money laundering, theft, and contravention of the Public Finance Management Act.

The arrests came a day after Edwin Sodi, director of Blackhead Consulting – one of the companies involved in the scandal – appeared before the commission. He was questioned about payments made to civil servants and prominent ANC politicians linked to the 2013 project to audit houses with asbestos in their ceilings and to remove it.

The companies and state officials involved allegedly conspired to obtain an R255m tender to carry out work that cost only R21m.

The arrests are “an indication of what’s to come”, Hangwani says.