Pretoria - Disgraced former executive mayor of the City of Tshwane, Dr Murunwa Makwarela has handed himself over to the SAPS Brooklyn, in Tshwane, as he faces fraud charges in connection with the insolvency rehabilitation certificate he presented in a desperate bid to keep the mayoral chain.
eNCA reported on Monday morning that Makwarela was at the police station in Tshwane, after he arrived to hand himself to the authorities.
He is expected to make a court appearance on Monday, after being processed at the police station.
In March, Cope councillor was forced to call it quits, amid a scandal about his controversial insolvency rehabilitation certificate.
In dramatic scenes, Makwarela who is Cope’s sole councillor in Tshwane, was removed as mayor through a disqualification as a councillor by city manager Johann Mettler after it surfaced that in 2016 the high court in Pretoria declared him insolvent.
Days later, Makwarela resurfaced as Tshwane mayor, after he submitted a certificate of solvency rehabilitation to Mettler in keeping with a promise the mayor had made.
The declaration of his insolvency status by a court of law meant Makwarela was ineligible to hold a public office as a councillor in terms of Section 158(1) of the Constitution.
He was under severe pressure to produce an evidence certificate of solvency rehabilitation to demonstrate he was not an unrehabilitated insolvent and was eligible to occupy the public office as Tshwane’s number one citizen.
However, Mettler indicated that he asked the City of Tshwane’s legal services to investigate Makwarela’s solvency rehabilitation certificate after its authenticity came into question.
Tshwane multiparty coalition partners the DA, ActionSA, FF+, ACDP, and the IFP, cast doubt on the validity of the certificate and had vowed to take legal steps to verify its legal standing.
Makwarela was dealt a blow when chief registrar of the high court in Pretoria, Tumelo Refilwe Ledwaba, confirmed that “the document purporting to be an order issued by this Court was never issued in our courts. I also confirm that no rehabilitation order has ever been issued regarding the parties named in the said documents”.
The Cope councillor resigned amid the scandal.
Ledwaba said he was referring the matter to the Hawks for investigations.
In reaction to the statement, representatives of the multi-party coalition in Tshwane proceeded to Brooklyn police station to press criminal charges against Makwarela.
They said charges related to allegations that Makwarela knowingly supplied falsified and fraudulent documentation to the city.
IOL