“Politicians do not work with money”
Nkangala – Former mayor of Nkangala district municipality Sarah Masilela has been cleared of theft and forgery.
The Middelburg specialised commercial crimes court on Monday found Masilela not guilty on the charges of theft, forgery and contravening the public finance management act (PFMA).
Masilela and eight (8) others were arrested by the hawks on 23 August 2021 and released on R10 000 bail each by the Middelburg magistrates court the next day.
They were accused of defrauding the district municipality more than R200 000 for allegedly forging documents for payment of work that was never done during the September 2019 heritage celebration.
“The court found that the evidence of state witnesses is not strong enough to secure conviction and therefore all accused were found not guilty and discharged,” explained Monica Nyuswa, spokesperson of the national prosecuting authority (NPA) in Mpumalanga.
Masilela who was the Nkangala district mayor at the time, voluntarily stepped aside, as per the ANC step aside resolution, to deal with the charges.
She told Highveld Chronicle on Thursday that she suffered a lot of humiliation due to what she referred to as shoddy investigation by the hawks. “I feel very bad they have broken my family, they have broken my children and my soul,” she said.
“I couldn’t tell my children exactly what had happened because I knew from day 1 that I did not take money-politicians do not work with money. So this was a plot and I feel that the hawks need to do their job thoroughly, they must not humiliate people.”
