The Mbombela Stadium outside Nelspruit cost about R1.2 billion and hosted four matches of the 2010 World Cup. Its design contract went to Lefika Emerging Equity, a company whose directors included Kaizer Chiefs manager Bobby Motaung. Council speaker Jimmy Mohlala discovered that Lefika's bid had relied on a false tax-clearance certificate and that a letter purporting to be from the council, bearing the forged signature of municipal manager Sgananda Siboza, had been used to raise a R1 million bank overdraft. He moved to cancel the contract and lay charges.
On the night of 4 January 2009, the day before he was to do so, Mohlala was shot dead outside his KaNyamazane home. Two police officers arrested in 2010 for the murder were released for lack of evidence. In August 2012 the Hawks charged Motaung, Herbert Theledi, Lefika chief executive Chris Grib, former municipal manager Jacob Dladla, district technical director Tebogo Kubeka and attorney Michael Ramos with fraud of R143 million over the design tender, with R920 million of stadium tenders in the wider investigation. Motaung's defence called the prosecutor's reference to "the killings in Nelspruit" "sensationalism".
The case never reached trial. In July 2016 the NPA abandoned it after police "failed to carry out instructions from a lead prosecutor" and conflicting NPA letters reached the magistrate; it was formally closed in November 2016: "The NPA cannot revive a case with insufficient evidence." Charges withdrawn, the accused are presumed innocent. The murder remains unsolved; it resurfaced in untested allegations in April 2026. Mohlala is the first in this archive's line of officials killed after moving against a tender — before Babita Deokaran, Mpho Mafole and Martha Rantsofu.