Did tender vultures kill Stanley Khanyile?

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Sedibeng municipal manager Stanley Khanyile could have been killed by people who wanted information on tenders after it emerged yesterday that he was threatened and chased to his car by a group of businessmen three weeks before his murder. 

Khanyile had to run to his vehicle when more than 10 businessmen stormed his offices demanding information about the municipality’s budget and upcoming tenders.

This is according to mayor Busi Modisakeng, who told Sowetan yesterday that even though she did not want to speculate on why Khanyile was shot, she could not rule out that it could be linked to his job as municipal manager.

Khanyile, who joined the municipality in June 2017, was shot in broad daylight at the weekend while sitting in his car at a shopping centre in Meyersdal in Alberton, south of Johannesburg.

Modisakeng told Sowetan how “more than 10 men” stormed the municipal offices, allegedly “under the pretext of being a local business forum members” and demanded an explanation of what was the municipal budget and how they could get upcoming tenders.

She said the visit to Khanyile's office  coincided with the closing date of a security tender the municipality had advertised.

“In the previous weeks, they had been a number of people coming in the institution looking for him, specifically under the pretext of being a business forum looking for information,” Modisakeng said.

She said the group did not want to get the information from any other individual at the municipality.

“They wanted him (Khanyile) in particular  to give them that information and it went very nasty because he was then attacked while he was trying to go to his car when he had tried to avoid them at all costs.”

She said they hurled insults at Khanyile and referred to him as a "laaitie" (an upstart) who had not answered their phone calls.

Modisakeng said the people later accused Khanyile of having pointed a firearm at them but a police case was not registered because of lack of evidence.

“People who were around had never seen him pointing a gun at them but what was scary was that they were personalising everything so it went that nasty as we found ourselves asking what’s the real intention here.”

She said a director in her office later received threatening text messages from an unknown person.

“What is shocking is that the director in my office received an SMS saying: 'we are on you and your family', then someone gets killed so brutally and we are all scared.”

Khanyile was under investigation by the Gauteng department of cooperative governance, which was due to receive a report yesterday from advocate William Mokhari, who was tasked by MEC Lebogang Maile to investigate numerous allegations against Khanyile.

Maile's  spokesperson, Castro Ngobese, said they expected findings of an investigation how Khanyile had allegedly acquired a R5m house and forged his wife's signature.

Among others, Khanyile was investigated for having increased his own salary to exceed "the amount for which concurrence was received", irregular appointments and flouting supply chain processes.

"The department deems it inappropriate to not at this stage make a determination on this matter until it has received the report from advocate Mokhari SC and take guidance from same," Ngobese said.

He said the investigation was prompted by numerous complaints about alleged wrongdoing by Khanyile that Maile had received.

The attack on Khyanyile by aggressive businessmen, as alleged by the mayor, and his eventual assassination at the weekend, happened when he was out on bail for another matter related to fraud.

He and co-accused, Durban businessman Poovandaren Chetty and former chief director in the Eastern Cape social development department Vuyokazi Sangoni, were due back in the King William's Town magistrate's court on October 16 to answer to a fraud and corruption case involving R29m.

The matter before the court is related to the time when Khanyile was Eastern Cape's social development department head.