Mandela Bay

City saviour who wrote the book on ANC-looting of Nelson Mandela Bay Metro actually helped the theft.

- Jonathan Erasmus

THE MAN WHO WROTE THE WIDELY acclaimed exposé of ANC corruption, How to Steal a City: The Battle for Nelson Mandela Bay, Crispian Olver, it emerges, opened the way to a final multimillion-rand heist from the city’s coffers in the run up to the 2016 local government elections.

Olver, was “parachuted” into the metro administration in late 2015 by then Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Pravin Gordhan. It was Olver who first pushed for an existing municipal contract with ANC-connected Mohlaleng Media (Pty) Ltd to be extended to supply services to any number of municipal departments without tender, despite numerous red flags having been raised about the company.

Olver had sweeping administrative and political powers to try to save the municipality from ruin and the ANC from electoral defeat in the 2016 poll.

“I could see nothing untoward about the contract although I knew the guy who owned the company was an ANC apparatchik called Cheslyn Mostert. He has for many years done business linked to ANC-controlled municipalities. The company’s ownership structure was fairly opaque but it was operational and we made use of it,” Olver admitted in an interview with Noseweek.

Despite concerns about the contract that were communicated to then-mayor Danny Jordaan’s office (nose216), it soon took on a life on its own and suddenly became the conduit for the purchase of just about any service by any department – from overalls, to food, to transport, to paying musicians – circumventing all tender processes and with next to zero accountability.

Sufficient evidence has emerged showing that the company submitted massively inflated invoices for services while it operated with impunity under the cover of the city’s then ANC leadership – leaving in its wake a series of distressed businesses that were simply never paid.