Uproar as rich Shauwn Mkhize (MaMkhize) receives R27 million sponsorship from broke municipality. A decision by the cash-strapped Msunduzi Municipality, whose infrastructure has been in a state of decay for decades due to lack of service delivery, to donate R27 million to super-rich tenderpreneur Shauwn Mkhize has encountered rage.
It is not the first time that the Pietermaritzburg-based bankrupt municipality, which has been under administration for many years because of poor budget control and lack of essential services delivering, has been challenged for signing a deal to spend millions of rands to a soccer team.
This time legal action has been instituted against the allocation of R27 million to the Royal AM Football Club owned by Mkhize whose mother Florence was an ANC struggle veteran. The three-year contract, signed in July, would see the team receiving about R9 million per annum.
The deal also entailed that in addition to the funding, the city of Pietermaritzburg would be responsible for the maintenance of the Harry Gwala Stadium, the new training facility for the team that previously exercised at Durban’s Chatsworth Stadium.
Neither Mkhize nor the municipality and Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) MEC Bongi Sithole-Moloi has responded to Sunday Independent’s questions.
The provincial government lauded Mkhize in 2021 for buying Bloemfontein Celtic for R50 million and rebranded it to Royal AM, which was an addition to the provincial-based Premier Soccer League teams.
DA leader at the municipality Councillor Ross Strachan has approached the Pietermaritzburg High Court to stop the sponsorship or even reversing any money that might have already been given to the team.
Strachan filed the court papers on August 5 after the municipality had allegedly ignored his letter of concern.
“We are under the administration and we cannot even deliver most basic services.
“The city has no money, we have less than 10 days of cash coverage, we have got no financial and physical capacity in our departments due to the financial disarray,” Strachan told Sunday Independent.
ANC provincial spokesperson Mafika Mndebele said his party would engage with the municipality to establish how the city would benefit from funding of the team.
“As the ANC we don’t encourage our municipalities to spend money where there is no return on investment,” said Mndebele.
“Even in this issue (Royal AM sponsor) we will follow it up to see what the returns would be,” said Mndebele.
In the quickread.co.za website, Mkhize, has been described as one of the richest women in the country with her net worth R300 million.
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Her mother Florence Mkhize was honoured by renaming Durban CBD’s Martin West Building, which is eThekwini treasury headquarters, after her (mother).
Mkhize junior has been previously reportedly owning a R25 million worth luxury mansion overlooking the Durban North beach in upmarket La Lucia suburb. Among the top of the range fleet of cars she was said to be driving were Rolls-Royce Phantom, Ferrari 612 Scaglietti, Roll-Royce Ghost and a Lamborghini. It is believed that she in the past years scored government tenders worth more than R1 billion, including construction of thousands of low-cost houses around the province.
The municipality has been under administration for the past few years, but when it was hoping to come out of it early this year, Sithole-Moloi announced in May that its administration would be extended to October 31 because it had again “regressed to a qualified audit outcome”.
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