The Hawks, representing the NPA’s Investigative Directorate, conducted an early morning raid on parliamentary speaker Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula’s Johannesburg home on Tuesday, according to a report in Business Day.
Allegations suggest she received and solicited over R2.3m from a former military contractor during her time as defence minister.
Mapisa-Nqakula was reportedly present during the raid at her residence on Adolph Goertz Street, Bruma.
The operation concluded around 11 am with the seizure of certain items.
The speaker had returned from official visits to Paris and New York last week.
The allegations were first published by the Sunday Times regarding the purported acceptance of cash bribes by Speaker Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula during her tenure as the Minister of Defence and Military Veterans.
She has been accused of soliciting more than R2 million in cash bribes from Nombasa Ndhlovu, who was at the time working in the military logistics industry and married to a general in the South African National Defence Force (SANDF).
The Sunday Times reported that Ndhlovu allegedly made ten payments to Mapisa-Nqakula while she was Minister of Defence, totalling R2.3 million between November 2016 and July 2019. In an affidavit, Ndhlovu said Mapisa-Nqakula made several demands for cash, initially through the late secretary of defence Dr Sam Gulube and then directly.
According to her affidavit, Ndhlovu first began interacting with Mapisa-Nqakula in 2016 when experiencing frustration with the suspension of a R104 million tender her company Umkhombe Marine had been awarded to transport cargo to Sudan.
Ndhlovu was arrested in October 2020 and released on R80 000 bail for fraud, involving approximately R100 million, over the Sudan matter and other SANDF contracts.
Mapisa-Nqakula was elected as the speaker of Parliament in August 2021 following her a Cabinet reshuffle in the wake of the July unrest that year.
