Council Speaker of the Matatiele Local Municipality, Nomasomi Mshuqwana, is embroiled in a scandal with allegations that a car allocated to her by the municipality has been used to sell alcohol in and around Matatiele. According to reports the incident happened on Saturday evening when the driver Khangelani Sebuku(known as TO) was seen by a number of people exchanging money with bottles of liquor to people in town. Acting Municipal Manager Dr Vuyo Mlokoti confirmed that he has received these reports and is investigating them. The Informer was inundated with calls on Saturday evening from people who said they bought the liquor from Sebuku. Describing the situation, one of the buyers said he phoned the Speaker’s driver after being told by other colleagues that TO can organise liquor for him. The buyer said “my cousins who are residing in Durban came to a funeral in one of the rural areas in Matatiele. After the funeral they phoned me trying to find where can they get liquor in town?. I told them that they must come I will make arrangements. I phoned TO requesting him to deliver for me a bottle of Black Label which he told me it is going to cost R750. I met him in town in the evening for purposes of collecting my bottle and by that time I was with my cousins in the car. He came to us telling us that it’s no longer R750 as before and it’s either I take it or leave it. We had to organise R50 to top up the R750. He went to the Speaker‘s car which was followed by a red Land Rover with a Port Shepstone number plate, he came out with our bottle. We could see that there other people that are waiting for him to deliver”, said the buyer. Others told The Informer that the Speaker’s car was always moving between Maluti and the Matatiele town delivering liquor to different people. Some are saying they saw it on Thursday and some on Saturday. Attempts to get comment from TO failed as he could not answer his cell phone. Commenting about this Dr Mlokoti condemned the incident as unfortunate,” I am following the matter as we speak. There are people who are prepared to come forward and give evidence. I have also consulted with police officers as you know there is a breach of Covid 19 regulations if this is true.” Asked to explain the management of these cars since its Lockdown Dr Mlokoti said the car in question is with the Speaker so that she can be able to deal with urgent matter that deal with Covid 19. “The process of releasing vehicles from the stores is too long so we took a decision that the Mayor and the Speaker must be allocated with these cars so they can deal with issue of food parcel distribution and urgent meetings since the start of Lockdown. The issue of the Speakers car is a talk of the town especially on Facebook.” People are blaming the Speaker for this with some going as far as saying she knows about this. Commenting on the matter DA councilor Wonga Potwana demanded the ANC expel the Speaker from her position.” We have observed that Speaker’s car is always involved in things that are out of her jurisdiction. A year ago we raised an issue about the Toyota Prado that belongs to her that had a bullet hole on the bonnet, that urgent motion was never answered. During lockdown she issued permits to councilors and the MEC has not acted on that. Now she is breaching the Covid 19 regulations. Then why ANC cannot take action on this? he asked. Councilor Mshuqwana couldn’t not be reached for comment, both her phones were on voicemail.
