Daily Maverick article by Caryn Dolley
Malusi Booi, the Cape Town mayoral committee member fired in 2023, has been arrested in what appears to be a major construction tender investigation linked to 28s gang suspicions. In that year, allegations surfaced that Booi accepted cash gratifications from underworld figures.
Former City of Cape Town human settlements mayoral committee member Malusi Booi, who was fired in 2023 after his official office was raided during a corruption investigation with offshoots leading to organised crime suspects, has now been arrested.
While the South African Police Service has not yet named him because he is yet to appear in court, Daily Maverick understands he is among those who were detained over two days in a crackdown targeting alleged criminality linked to the City’s human settlements directorate.
Allegations previously surfaced that Booi accepted cash from an organised crime suspect or suspects in exchange for information relating to housing tenders. This led to him being suspended, dismissed and resigning as a councillor.
Booi, who simply describes himself as “a farmer” on X, previously brushed off accusations against him, saying the saga had put his life in danger. He later added that he wanted to clear his name and get on with his life.
Daily Maverick understands Booi was detained in the Eastern Cape, where he has a farm, late on Monday, 9 September, and on Tuesday was being brought to Cape Town.
Calls and messages to three cellphone numbers linked to him did not go through, or were not responded to, on Tuesday morning.
On Tuesday afternoon Western Cape police spokesperson Novela Potelwa, without providing the names of those detained, said in a statement that a 46-year-old suspect was arrested when police officers, including from the Commercial Crimes and Anti-Gang units, “swooped on a location in the Eastern Cape” on Monday evening.
The age of that suspect matches Booi’s – a City of Cape Town document showed he was born in 1977.
Potelwa said the arrest of the 46-year-old suspect was “part of a protracted investigation into alleged fraudulent and corrupt activities at the City of Cape Town’s human settlements directorate”.
She added: “The arrest follows an investigation initiated by commercial crimes detectives that saw the investigators descending on the City of Cape Town offices in March 2023 and seizing a number of items as part of their probe.”
Daily Maverick previously reported that Booi’s office was raided in March 2023.
Three other suspects were arrested in Johannesburg and another four in Cape Town on Tuesday.
By the afternoon, the suspects arrested outside Cape Town were being transported to the city.
The group was expected to appear in the Cape Town Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday on charges linked to money laundering, fraud, corruption, racketeering and extortion.
“The arrests are seen as a significant milestone in this major investigation, with the suspects charged and brought before court,” Potelwa said.
“The possibility of further arrests in the matter cannot be ruled out.”
Daily Maverick understands the broader investigation in which Booi’s name surfaced is linked to suspicions of 28s gang involvement and construction tenders.
Construction mafia crimes have affected Cape Town and other parts of South Africa badly.
The scandal linked to the City of Cape Town has so far involved the murder of a staffer at a housing project, allegations of tenders being tweaked to suit certain companies, as well as dismissals and suspensions.
Daily Maverick has reported previously that during the broader police investigation, which involved Booi’s office being raided in 2023, the name of suspected 28s gang boss Ralph Stanfield surfaced.
The police recently alleged that Stanfield was a “construction mafia gang leader”.
Stanfield has also been accused of heading The Firm, a gang group with a strong 28s membership.
He and his wife, Nicole Johnson, along with several co-accused, are set to appear again in the Cape Town Magistrates’ Court on Friday, 13 September, via video link in a growing matter that initially centred on fraud and car theft charges.
The case, which began when the couple was arrested in September 2023, has developed, with more accused, and charges relating to them, being added.
One of the charges relates to the murder of City of Cape Town official Wendy Kloppers, who was shot at a housing development project in Delft in February 2023.
The whole criminal charges scandal started surfacing in the public domain the month after Kloppers was killed – Booi’s office was raided as part of a fraud and corruption case in March last year.
He was not arrested at the time.
Booi subsequently told Daily Maverick the allegations against him “do not exist”, and that because his name was being drawn into the scandal, his “life was seriously under threat”.
In April 2023, Daily Maverick reported on some of the details in the investigation into Booi, among other people.
According to the police, it was alleged that he “received gratification in the form of cash” and that “these cash payments are paid by notorious individuals in the criminal underworld… to facilitate the provision of information regarding the City’s tenders in the Human Settlements Directorate”.
According to that statement, it was also alleged in an affidavit that Booi had “corrupt relationships with certain service providers and gangsters in Bishop Lavis”.
Parts of Bishop Lavis are known as 28s strongholds.
A police application for a search warrant relating to Booi said that electronic equipment was to be seized and scoured for keywords including “tenders” and “payments”, as well as the names of Stanfield and alleged Sexy Boys gang leader Jerome “Donkie” Booysen.
Other allegations included that Booi would send staff to a garage in Bishop Lavis, owned by a suspected gangster, where they would collect between R20,000 and R100,000 in cash.
This cash, it was alleged, would be deposited into the bank account of a personal assistant who was then instructed via WhatsApp which of Booi’s expenses should be paid with it.
The police application for a search warrant relating to Booi also flagged “Glomix” as a keyword to be searched for on seized electronic equipment.
Daily Maverick has reported that Glomix House Brokers, a company which Johnson ran, had intermittently, for more than a decade, been involved in housing projects in Cape Town worth millions of rands.
In March this year though, National Treasury restricted Glomix, meaning it may not do business with the government for a decade.
At the end of 2023, the City of Cape Town also confirmed it had blacklisted seven companies linked to Johnson “based on the risk they pose to the city’s reputation”.
The overall scandal involves other City staffers and paints a worrying picture of what may have been happening in the municipality.
City manager Lungelo Mbandazayo previously said that certain investigations into suspected construction mafia crimes had started after Kloppers was murdered in February 2023.
She had been killed apparently after the City refused to budge when gangsters demanded work from contractors there.
Mbandazayo previously told IOL: “The investigation also saw some of the officials from the human settlements department being suspended and others are attending disciplinary hearings.
“They were even tailor-making tenders before they went out so those same companies could easily apply and be granted those tenders. They (the gangsters) don’t operate in isolation.
“They exist because internally there are people helping them. When you look at any criminal activity that is thriving, it’s because people are conniving.”
In January, the City confirmed to Daily Maverick that its public housing director, Siphokazi September, had been dismissed.
At the time two other staffers had been suspended for misconduct.
As for Booi, he has taken to social media before to express his feelings about corruption.
He has also described how he and colleagues carried out their human settlements work.
In August, on X, Booi stated: “I have said this before, government officials go unpunished most of the time.
“Those who are enablers of corruption must be punished harshly.
“Our borders are not secured because of them.”
While still human settlements mayco member in February 2023, he posted on Facebook that the City of Cape Town was offering a R5,000 reward “to anyone who comes forward with information regarding extortion incidents & intimidation at our City housing projects”.
He added: “Projects amounting to approximately R1-billion are currently at risk.”
In 2021, referencing a housing project, he posted on X: “We served diligently and we served with integrity.” DM