A senior education department official and her husband, a former ANC chaplain-general, are being investigated by the Hawks for their involvement in a disastrous R500m school tablets contract.
A senior education department official and her husband, a former ANC chaplain-general, are being investigated by the Hawks for their involvement in a disastrous R500m school tablets contract.
Dr Naledi Mbude-Mehana, a deputy director-general in the national Department of Basic Education, married Rev Vukile Mehana, the executive chair of Sizwe Africa IT, just months after two payments totaling R330m were made to his company.
The payments, negotiated when Mbude-Mehana was head of department (HoD) of Eastern Cape education in 2021 and 2022, were made despite the tablet contract with Sizwe Africa having been found by the State Information Technology Agency (Sita) to have been unlawful and invalid, and after a high court order interdicting the payment from being made.
Mbude-Mehana was suspended in April 2022, shortly before the payments went though. A month later she resigned, after reaching an undisclosed settlement with Eastern Cape premier Oscar Mabuyane.
Three months later, in August 2022, she married Mehana in a lavish wedding in Midrand. The nuptials took place just months after Mehana divorced his wife of 32 years.
Appointed head of department in June 2021, Mbude-Mehana’s tenure was abruptly cut short by Mabuyane. Her suspension and subsequent removal were attributed to several factors: underspending of the infrastructure conditional grant, resulting in a R205m return to the Treasury, delays in stationery delivery to schools, and delayed processing of payments for educator assistants during the 2021 festive season.
[Photo: Department of Basic Education/X]