Malaka's Mansion
Malaka's Mansion
Investigation – IDT contractor ripped off workers, bankrolled Tebogo Malaka’s new R16m property
 | By Pieter-Louis Myburgh |
On 6 August 2025, Daily Maverick released a shocking video showing how suspended IDT CEO Tebogo Malaka tried to buy this journalist’s silence with a wad of cash. Here is the story Malaka didn’t want the public to see.
A prominent Gauteng businessman made at least two payments towards an upmarket property currently being built for suspended Independent Development Trust (IDT) CEO Tebogo Malaka. This while his non-profit foundation secured a R60-million contract from the IDT to run employment schemes.
Malaka’s benefactor is Collen Mashawana, chair of the Collen Mashawana Foundation, a non-profit company (NPC) headquartered in Johannesburg. Mashawana also runs the Afribiz group, which clinched multi-billion rand infrastructure development projects funded by Gauteng’s provincial government.
Mashawana’s million-plus social media audience gets regular updates on the self-styled “philanthropeneur’s” charitable work. His foundation, co-managed by younger brother Austin Mashawana, builds houses for the poor and feeds the hungry.
The Mashawanas’ work for the IDT, however, may have left hundreds of poor, unemployed South Africans in a fix.
The payments Mashawana made towards Malaka’s property are troubling for two main reasons:
- Shortly after the first payment, Mashawana’s non-profit secured a substantial Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP) contract from the IDT.
- To date, the IDT has transferred at least R23-million to the Collen Mashawana Foundation. Most of these funds should have gone to the foundation's EPWP workers. However, we established that hundreds of EPWP participants did not receive their hard-earned salaries, sparking concern that the funds may have been used for other purposes.
Some of the disgruntled EPWP workers in the Free State
Mashawana did not only financially contribute towards Malaka’s new house. Our investigation shows that he acted as something of a project manager. All this while the unpaid EPWP workers were fighting with his charitable foundation to receive their salaries.
What’s more, Daily Maverick’s secretly filmed conversation with Malaka points to an allegedly improper relationship between her and the Mashawanas. The suspended IDT CEO suggested that the brothers would be “very open” to engage with this journalist, and that she could “facilitate” such a meeting.
Malaka's offer
Mashawana made his first contribution towards Malaka’s property in late July 2024. At the time, the IDT was evaluating bids from non-profit entities and NGOs for EPWP initiatives in the 2024/2025 (previous) and 2025/2026 (current) financial years.
Less than three weeks later, the Collen Mashawana Foundation secured by far the largest slice of the IDT’s EPWP spend. This was despite the fact that it had no previous experience in managing an employment initiative of this magnitude.
According to records Daily Maverick obtained, the foundation was to be given nearly R30-million during 2024/2025. It is unclear how much the IDT allocated to Mashawana’s foundation for the current financial year, but all indications are that the two-year contract is worth around R60-million.
Mashawana’s foundation was tasked with running employment schemes for nearly 1,800 people in Gauteng, North West, Limpopo, KwaZulu-Natal and in the Free State.
Employment schemes under Mashawana's control
EPWP participants typically collect rubbish in public spaces, do road maintenance work, clean schools and clinics, or do similar work.
Those contracted to Mashawana’s foundation were supposed to earn roughly R1,700 per month, but we established that the foundation short-changed hundreds of these workers. In some months, EPWP participants received no money whatsoever, despite putting in hours and hours of physical labour.
More than one of the workers told us that they frequently couldn’t buy food due to the problems with their salaries.
While some of the workers fought with the foundation to receive their salaries, progress at the IDT CEO’s new house in Gauteng’s upmarket Waterfall Country Estate continued at a steady pace.
Our research points to a remarkable concurrency of developments surrounding the Waterfall property and key events pertaining to the IDT’s EPWP contract.
In fact, major works at the property only kicked off after the IDT had started depositing large sums of money in the Collen Mashawana Foundation’s bank account, the very funds meant for the EPWP participants.
Major work at Malaka’s stand only started after Mashawana’s foundation got money from the IDT
In addition, the main contractor at Malaka’s new house on several occasions paid for goods and services directly after the foundation received money from the IDT.
A troubling timeline
Meanwhile, Mashawana’s role as something of a project manager for the Waterfall development underscores his ties to the IDT’s suspended CEO. We have proof that shows Mashawana appointed the builder and other service providers, and coordinated the delivery of certain materials.
We presented our findings to Mashawana and Malaka and expressly asked them if they were funding the Waterfall property with the EPWP workers’ salaries. We also invited them to present us with evidence to contradict our investigation.
Neither Mashawana nor Malaka took up our offer. In fact, Malaka did not get back to us at all.
We sent Collen and Austin Mashawana a list of 19 detailed questions regarding the unpaid EPWP workers, the payments towards Malaka’s property, and other matters relevant to this investigation.
Collen Mashawana answered none of these questions and instead offered only a broad denial of wrongdoing.
“If you have proof of wrongdoing I encourage you to approach the authorities.”
“Neither I nor any entity I own or that is associated with me has received preferential treatment by government in our dealings with government. We have also not engaged in any unlawful conduct,” stated the businessman.
“It will not be appropriate for me to defend myself in the media on unsubstantiated and untested allegations,” added Mashawana.
He said Daily Maverick had already written its story and that our questions were merely a box-ticking exercise.
“Under the circumstances, if you have proof of wrongdoing I encourage you to approach the authorities and report it [to them] for further investigation,” said Mashawana.
This investigation draws from a wide range of documentation and source interviews, collected and conducted over a span of several months.
We visited some of the EPWP participants in Gauteng, rural Limpopo and in the Free State.
We also studied records pertaining to both the IDT’s EPWP projects and Malaka’s property. Finally, we consulted current and historical satellite images, allowing us to construct a reliable timeline of the progress at the Waterfall plot.
A most secretive project
A most secretive project
A tip-off in November 2024 prompted us to closely scrutinise some of Malaka’s financial dealings, especially those relating to her property portfolio.
Daily Maverick earlier revealed that Malaka’s Magogodi Family Trust in 2023 paid R3.6-million to acquire the leasehold rights for an erf in the Waterfall Country Estate. The transaction was concluded without a bond.
Next, we turned our focus to the building project. According to satellite imagery, Malaka’s stand remained vacant until it was cleared of vegetation during the first week of June 2024. This was the same week in which Mashawana’s foundation and other NPOs had to submit their bids to the IDT for the EPWP contracts.
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Waterfall Country Estate | Photos: Waterfall City
The properties in this slideshow are for illustrative
purposes only and are not linked to our investigation.
At first, we couldn’t find anything that betrayed Mashawana’s ties to the property. It seemed that Malaka didn’t want to be associated with the plot either. A construction sign on the erf’s sidewalk simply listed the client as “private”. The architects, engineer and contractor didn’t have any overt links to Mashawana.
However, we soon established that a woman named Thirusha Moonsamy was one of the project’s key role-players. Moonsamy had a company called Leeanka Cost and Construction, which was a subsidiary of Afribiz Invest, the holding company for Mashawana’s construction, civil engineering and property development ventures.
Moonsamy confirmed that she was working on Malaka’s new house, but she wouldn’t reveal much else. “As the project team we are very mindful of complying to the POPI Act, especially since Tebogo [Malaka] is a public figure,” she said in a Whatsapp message in April.
A little while later, we picked up a tidbit that seemed to explain Moonsamy’s reticence. All the contractors and other role-players involved in the project were made to sign non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) by the client. They couldn’t talk to us, even if they wanted to.
However, records and information from sources underpinned Mashawana’s direct involvement in the project. In fact, several factors suggested that Mashawana was actually calling the shots.
Firstly, there is Two Putswa Maeba Construction and Projects, the main contractor listed on the construction sign. Our sources informed us that Mashawana himself had appointed the company.
But we need not take our sources’ word for granted.
Documented evidence in the form of Whatsapp correspondence further underscores the extent of Mashawana’s close involvement.
Not only did Mashawana remain in constant contact with Peli Joshua Maseko, Two Putswa’s sole director, but he also set up meetings between the contractor, Malaka, Moonsamy and the project architects.
Mashawana also coordinated the delivery of key materials to the site, including a truckload of ready-mix concrete sourced for the project in January this year.
Asked about his role in the project, Maseko said we should speak to the owner.
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Mashawana’s money
Mashawana’s money
The two known payments Mashawana made towards Malaka’s new house cements his questionable role as one of the project’s key actors.
In the last week of July 2024, Mashawana transferred roughly R100,000 to the engineer working on Malaka’s house, using one of the myriad entities registered in his name. The payment was made by Luande Mukhethwa Properties. At the time, Mashawana was the company’s sole director.
Considering what was happening at the IDT during this period, this payment warrants scrutiny.
At the time of the transfer, the IDT was still considering the Collen Mashawana Foundation’s EPWP bid. In fact, mere days before the transfer, the IDT’s programme managers and supply chain management (SCM) administrators were still signing off on tender checklists and other documentation. The Collen Mashawana Foundation’s bid would no doubt have crossed their desks.
On 14 August 2024, less than three weeks after Mashawana paid the engineer, the IDT’s Management Bid Adjudication Committee (MBAC) approved bids from 421 non-profits for the roll-out of EPWP projects across South Africa’s nine provinces.
Because of what was happening at the IDT at the time, Mashawana's payment towards Malaka's property is a big red flag.
The IDT’s spend for these initiatives in the 2024-25 financial year would amount to roughly R700-million, benefiting some 44,000 unemployed South Africans.
The Collen Mashawana Foundation somehow secured the largest chunk of the IDT’s EPWP budget. By all accounts, this was a startling development as the foundation lacked experience in managing employment schemes of this magnitude. Also, it had never participated in the IDT’s EPWP initiatives before.
The uneven distribution of EPWP funds was especially pronounced in Limpopo. Records in our possession reveal that Mashawana’s foundation secured funding to employ 700 individuals in this province, at a cost of nearly R13-million.
The Collen Mashawana Foundation was among 70 non-profits appointed in Limpopo. None of the other organisations received nearly as much funding as that reserved for Mashawana’s non-profit. The NGO with the second highest allocation in the province was given only R2.5-million, less than a fifth of the Collen Mashawana Foundation’s allocation.
Shock over allocations
Shock over allocations
Shock over the allocations reverberated throughout the IDT and the Department of Public Works and Infrastructure (DPWI), the IDT’s parent department. Daily Maverick has seen communications between IDT and DPWI officials in which the allocations were questioned and sharply criticised.
Local NGOs in Limpopo were just as stunned.
“I’ve been involved with the IDT’s EPWP work in Limpopo for many years now, and this is the first time one organisation was given so many participants to manage. It is entirely out of the norm, and we are all questioning how this happened,” said one source, a manager at one of the Limpopo NGOs.
According to another source, the IDT in previous years distributed the allocations far more evenly among the qualifying organisations.
In KwaZulu-Natal, meanwhile, Mashawana’s non-profit trumped 128 other NGOs to win the biggest chunk of the IDT’s EPWP spend for the province.
“It is entirely out of the norm, and we are all questioning how this happened.”
It also got the most funding in North West, beating 43 other non-profits.
The IDT appointed 14 non-profits for the Free State. The Collen Mashawana Foundation was among only two NGOs in the province that received more than R7-million in funding.
Only in Gauteng did the foundation’s allocation roughly align with the average spend per NGO.
We scrutinised a dataset for the IDT’s EPWP allocation in all nine provinces. The records confirm that the Collen Mashawana Foundation was alone among the 421 non-profits in securing funding for five provinces. A handful of organisations were appointed to work in three provinces, but their funding allocations came to only a quarter of that reserved for Mashawana’s foundation.
Mashawana’s second Waterfall payment
Mashawana’s second Waterfall payment
In early April 2025, the project engineer for Malaka’s new house received a second payment from Mashawana, also totalling about R100,000.
The payment was made through an entity called Orinea Trucking. This company also listed Mashawana as its sole director.
The circumstances in which the payment was made warrants close scrutiny. The same can be said for several other transactions that we’ll unpack below.
According to financial records in our possession, the IDT in March this year made three payments to the Collen Mashawana Foundation for its EPWP work in the Free State, totalling R1.68-million.
The last of the three payments amounted to R572,000, and it was transferred to the foundation on 31 March. Only four days later, the engineer for the Waterfall project received his second payment from Mashawana’s Orinea Trucking.
“They stole from us”
“They stole from us”
We have no evidence that the engineer had been paid with the EPWP funds. However, what we can say with certainty is that the Collen Mashawana Foundation was not using the money for its intended purpose, at least not all of it.
As mentioned, the March transfers were meant for the foundation’s workers in the Free State. Our investigation identified scores of EPWP participants in the province who weren’t receiving their wages.
Daily Maverick travelled to the Kgotsong township outside Bothaville in June. We expected to find perhaps a handful of disgruntled EPWP workers. Instead, more than 50 people were packed into the local community centre to tell us their stories.
“Our contracts said we would work until the end of March, but we didn’t get a cent for the work we did after October 2024”
Those who had come out to meet us were among a larger group of 208 EPWP participants from the Nala local municipality — nearly half of the Collen Mashawana Foundation’s Free State cohort.
The group began working in August. At first, they were all assigned to the township’s rubbish dump. Later, they were split into smaller groups. Some of them picked up litter in Kgotsong. Others helped out at the local clinic.
Although their contracts provided for 14 work days per month, the programme only started midway through August. The group ended up putting in 11 work-days during that month, so they were meant to receive roughly R1,300.
However, in September, when their salaries for the previous month were finally paid, the Kgotsong participants were shocked to see that the foundation had transferred a measly R366 into their bank accounts. We obtained multiple sets of bank statements to verify the workers’ claims.
“The Collen Mashawana Foundation told us there were some problems with the funds and the paperwork they submitted to the IDT. They promised that we would get our full salaries at a later point,” explained Katleho Mokolutlo, a 29-year-old mother of three who relied on the EPWP work to feed her children.
It is highly doubtful that the Collen Mashawana Foundation would have had any cause to withhold portions of the workers’ salaries.
Mashawana's foundation claimed more than R1,300 from the IDT for each EPWP worker's salary in August, yet paid them only R366
Financial records confirm that the IDT in September 2024 transferred nearly R3.3-million to the foundation. This included nearly R1-million specifically earmarked for EPWP participants in the Free State, including those from Kgotsong.
What’s more, the IDT released the funds on the back of attendance registers and payment sheets signed by all 494 workers in the Free State, copies of which have been shared with us. The Collen Mashawana Foundation had no rightful reason to use the monies for any purpose other than paying the EPWP participants their full salaries.
The Kgotsong group nevertheless kept on working, hoping that the discrepancy would eventually be addressed. But matters only got worse.
The Collen Mashawana Foundation paid them their salaries for September and October, but after that the money simply dried up.
“It was terrible, doing all that work and then not getting our money. Many of us went to bed hungry”
“Our contracts said we would work until the end of March [2025], but we didn’t get a cent for the work we did after October 2024,” explained Ramosalioahae Mothibeli.
Known to fellow Kgotsong locals simply as Ramos, this 28-year-old was one of the participants who’d taken it upon themselves to fight the group’s cause.
Frustrated and angry, Ramos and a few others travelled to Bloemfontein in February for a meeting at the IDT’s regional offices. Austin Mashawana, the non-profit’s chief operating officer (COO) and Collen’s younger brother, also attended the meeting.
Mashawana allegedly told Ramos and his colleagues that the IDT had terminated the EPWP contract.
“We knew this couldn't be true,” Ramos told Daily Maverick. “We knew the programme had to run until the end of March and that the IDT couldn’t simply cut the funding.”
Ortman Kgathatso (31) and Isaac Setsoho (27), two more EPWP participants from Kgotsong, said the foundation exploited them.
“They probably thought we didn’t know our rights. But we know our rights. We signed contracts to work from August [2024] to March [2025],” said Kgathatso.
“It was terrible, doing all that work and then not getting our money. Many of us went to bed hungry,” added Setsoho.
When Daily Maverick met some of the workers at the Kgotsong community centre, things at times got somewhat heated.
“They stole from us! They are thieves!” one of the participants shouted, much to the agreement of his fellow workers.
Spur Wednesdays
Spur Wednesdays
Considering the general mood Daily Maverick observed in Kgotsong, it was probably for the best that the IDT CEO or representatives from the Collen Mashawana Foundation never met with the entire group.
However, Malaka and Austin Mashawana very nearly did just that.
Throughout January 2025, Ramos and some of the other Kgotsong participants kept up the pressure. They made direct contact with the IDT CEO. They were in touch with the Collen Mashawana Foundation’s COO too, asking him when they would receive their salaries.
At the beginning of March, Malaka and Austin Mashawana drove to Bothaville, no doubt hoping to douse the growing resentment.
A series of Whatsapp exchanges, coupled with a few source accounts, represent the most reliable record of the day’s events.
It was a Wednesday, and Malaka and Mashawana arrived in Bothaville shortly after 3pm. They wanted Ramos and just a handful of his fellow participants to meet them at the municipal offices in town.
However, Ramos and his colleagues insisted that the meeting should take place at the library in Kgotsong. They wanted the IDT CEO and the foundation’s COO to face the group’s collective frustration.
In the end, though, Malaka and Mashawana refused to travel to the township. Instead, they spent the afternoon inside Bothaville’s Spur restaurant. As soon as they realised that they couldn’t convince Ramos to come and meet them in town, Malaka and Mashawana drove back to Gauteng.
“The meeting didn’t end up happening because they refused coming here, feeling all scared of the ‘mob’,” Mokolutlo suggested when we met the group in June.
Shortly before our trip to Bothaville, Daily Maverick met Austin Mashawana at the foundation’s offices in Rivonia, Johannesburg.
He said there had been “hiccups” and “teething problems” with the programme, but he claimed the Kgotsong workers had received all the monies that were due to them. This, as we’ll see, was not quite true.
We asked Mashawana why he and Malaka didn’t meet the group in Kgotsong.
“We thought it was unsafe,” he said.
CCMA
CCMA
The Kgotsong group weren’t going to let the matter go that easily.
One week after Malaka and Austin Mashawana’s fruitless trip to Bothaville, Ramos and 207 of his fellow EPWP workers lodged a complaint with the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) in nearby Welkom.
The commissioner considered the group’s evidence. In April, he ruled that the Collen Mashawana Foundation had indeed failed to pay them their salaries. They were owed money for the wages they should have earned from November 2024 to March this year.
The CCMA ordered the foundation to pay its workers their outstanding salaries, totalling nearly R1.7-million. To date, however, the non-profit has not complied with the decision.
Free State and beyond
Free State and beyond
Failing to pay more than 200 EPWP workers is egregious enough. Sadly, though, the issue wasn’t limited to the Kgotsong group.
Our investigation identified scores more people elsewhere in the Free State who suffered the same fate. We also found plenty of workers from other provinces who’d allegedly been ripped off by the Collen Mashawana Foundation.
Upcoming reports will take us to rural Limpopo, to the villages that line the North West provinces’s border with Botswana, and to the Free State’s Goldfields region. In each of these areas, the Collen Mashawana Foundation ran EPWP schemes on behalf of the IDT. While the foundation claimed and received funds from the IDT, the workers were being short-changed. In some instances, they weren’t getting paid at all.
We believe there exists sufficient circumstantial evidence to entertain the notion that some of the EPWP funds went towards Malaka's property.
The most pressing riddle to solve, then, is what the foundation was doing with the monies it had banked from the IDT. Were the funds perhaps diverted to Malaka’s Waterfall property?
We believe there exists sufficient circumstantial evidence to at least entertain this notion.
As demonstrated earlier, one of Mashawana’s companies paid Malaka’s engineer shortly after the IDT had paid the businessman’s foundation.
To conclude this piece, we’ll unpack additional developments and transactions that give us more reason to be concerned.
The container payments
The container payments
Satellite images, written correspondence and vital information gleaned from sources make up the various puzzle pieces that allowed us to put together an interesting picture concerning Malaka’s Waterfall property.
The stand had been cleared of vegetation in June 2024, but the project only really kicked into gear in October, after the Collen Mashawana Foundation had received its first payments from the IDT.
Our investigation highlighted a remarkable concurrency of activity at the Waterfall property and the IDT’s EPWP payments.
During the second week of October, for instance, the IDT made a series of payments to the Collen Mashawana Foundation, totalling R3.6-million.
Key developments regarding the Waterfall project unfolded the very next week. There was a site handover meeting attended by the contractor Mashawana handpicked for the project.
Secondly, the project team submitted their building plans to the Waterfall Country Estate for approval. Finally, the architects, interior designers and other service providers were added to a Whatsapp group for the project.
In short, work on Malaka’s property had now kicked off in earnest, at the very moment when the Collen Mashawana Foundation’s EPWP workers were asking why their initial salaries didn’t add up.
On 20 December, the Collen Mashawana Foundation received R1.1-million from the IDT. The next day, Two Putswa settled the outstanding rental fee and also made an advance payment for January’s lease.
Naturally, Malaka’s contractor had to tend to all manner of costs relating to the new house.
One such expense was for a construction container, one in which the contractor could safely store tools and equipment.
We examined four payments the contractor, Two Putswa Maeba Construction and Projects, made for leasing the container. There is an uncanny proximity between these transactions and the payments Mashawana’s foundation received from the IDT.
On Thursday, 10 October 2024, the IDT transferred roughly R856,000 to the Collen Mashawana Foundation. By the following Friday, Two Putswa had paid nearly R3,500 to settle the first invoice for the container.
The same thing would happen over the next few months. Only, the delay between the IDT’s EPWP payments and Two Putswa’s transfers for the container hire would get shorter and shorter.
On 8 November 2024, a Friday, the IDT paid R1.23-million into the Collen Mashawana Foundation’s account. The following Wednesday, more funds from Two Putswa reflected in the container company’s account.
Two Putswa’s payment in December is especially interesting.
The company had fallen behind on settling that month’s invoice for the lease.
On 20 December, the Collen Mashawana Foundation received R1.1-million from the IDT. The next day, Two Putswa settled the outstanding rental fee and also made an advance payment for January’s lease.
When the time came to settle the bill for February, Two Putswa again made the payment only one day after the IDT had transferred funds to the Collen Mashawana Foundation. The foundation received another R1.23-million from the IDT on the 12th of that month. The following day, Two Putswa paid nearly R1,000 for the lease.
One of Two Putswa’s more substantial payments towards Malaka’s project also caught our eye.
February’s R1.23-million transfer was among four payments the Collen Mashawana Foundation received from the IDT towards the end of that month, totalling R2.3-million.
In the week the payments were made, Two Putswa’s director, Joshua Maseko, began working on quotes for large drainage pipes and related materials. The following week, Maseko’s company paid roughly R11,000 to source the materials.
Time will tell whether or not these goods were bankrolled with IDT-linked funds.
The same goes for Mashawana’s own payments towards the Waterfall property.
In the meantime, Malaka’s close dealings with an IDT contractor is scandal enough to cast a deep shadow over her tenure as the entity’s CEO.
As for the EPWP workers’ unpaid salaries: any law enforcement body worth its salt would immediately set out to probe this most woeful saga. DM
* This investigation was made possible by funding from the Henry Nxumalo Foundation, an independent non-profit company that supports investigative journalism in South Africa and elsewhere on the continent.
* Some of the satellite images are from Airbus Space and Defence’s Pléiades Neo satellite and were generously supplied to us by the company.
*Information and documents related to this story can be securely uploaded to Daily Maverick’s encrypted tip-offs portal.
On 28 August, Pieter-Louis Myburgh will take the stage at The Gathering 2025: Changemakers | Impact Edition to speak out for the first time on this explosive saga, share new insights and offer a rare behind-the-scenes look at how the story continues to unfold. If you want to be in the room for this, don’t wait. Book your ticket now. *Not based in CT? Register here to attend virtually.
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