Two Johannesburg women were shocked yesterday to discover that they were listed as business partners of Dr Nandipha Magudumana, fugitive Thabo Bester’s girlfriend.
Businesswomen Lucille Gumbi and Phumzile Pega told Sowetan that although they were previously friends with Magudumana, they never went into business with her.
The business address in Bryanston, north of Johannesburg given however did not have such a company called called TBM (PTY) LTD. business address which Dr Nandi listed is fake. The office park centre manager said they’ve never had a tenant by that company nameTBM (PTY) LTD.
According to a company search by Sowetan, TBM was registered in February 2018 with a business address in Bryanston. The three (Gumbi, Pega, Magudumana) are listed as directors. Although the company is listed as active, it is being deregistered on Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (Cipro) for nonpayment.
“I have never registered a business with her. This is news to me. What does the company do?” asked Gumbi, who learned of her directorship through Sowetan.
“Nandipha and I were friends for some time but the friendship sort of fizzled out and we stopped communicating. The last time we spoke was about three years ago.”
Gumbi said while she and Magudumana were still friends, they had tried to venture into a business on boardroom services to help entrepreneurs some years ago, but it never took off. “Hence my confusion on the business registration,” she said.
However, Sowetan has learned that Gumbi pulled out after Bester started meddling in the planned business’s affairs from his cell in Mangaung, where he was serving a 50-year jail term for rape and murder of women he lured using Facebook.
Bester is known for scamming people by fronting as a businessman who can crack deals.
Pega told Sowetan she had not done any business with Magudumana and was only a supportive friend at her events.
“We were just friends. I would support her at her events, but that is all it really was. I don’t even remember the last time we spoke, it was a long time ago. I have to investigate this company and why we are listed on it,” said Pega.
Not much is available on what the company does.
The office park manager said they have about 70 tenants and neither Magudumana, Bester, Pega and Gumbi were listed as tenants.
The search also revealed that Magudumana had eight companies registered under her name and had resigned from three. Two of the companies, I Coin Group and I Media Live, were registered in September and November 2020 respectively, while Doctors Network Legacy and Optimum Medical Holding Group were registered a day apart in May 2017.
Magudumana took off last week with Bester, leaving their luxury mansion in Hyde Park just before authorities confirmed that DNA results proved that Bester had staged an escape from the Mangaung prison after a fire broke out in his single cell.
For almost a year, Bester has been living his best life under the guise that he had burned to death in the prison cell. The police have since confirmed that the body was not Bester’s.
Mangaung is one of two prison facilities in the country that are managed by a private company, the other being Kutama Sinthumule in Louis Trichardt, Limpopo.
Correctional services spokesperson Singabakho Nxumalo said six employees from G4S Emergency Support Team (EST) were suspended while three were dismissed soon after the company held an internal investigation following the fire.
“They (G4S) have been refusing to give us the case file and when we were doing our own investigation into the fire, we were told some workers have either been dismissed or suspended. We could not get sworn statements from them. We still don’t know why those guards were disciplined because G4S tells us this is an employer-employee issue,” said Nxumalo. Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union (Popcru) spokesperson Richard Mamabolo said the dismissed EST officials were being used as scapegoats in a bigger scheme.
“It would have not been possible for junior police to have orchestrated the whole thing. They should look into the most senior management within that correctional centre... it is impossible that a body could have been brought into the prison and into the cell without being noticed, and Bester escaped without any coordination.
“There should be further investigations into what happened. The issues around how the body got into the cell are not clarified. It all brings into question the charges these officials are facing. They may just be a scapegoat into a bigger scheme,” he said.
sibiyan@sowetan.co.za
kokam@sowetan.co.za
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