In 2022 Emfuleni Local Municipality — already the subject of a court-ordered intervention over sewage in the Vaal — awarded Maboela Forestry and Construction CC a R16 million tender for 18 vehicles: UD trucks, bakkies and graders. The municipality paid in full. Seven vehicles arrived.
Martha Rantsofu, a financial clerk at the municipality, reported the procurement. In March 2026 she was murdered. Her killing brought in the Gauteng Political Killings Task Team, which treated the fleet tender as the motive line. Former fleet manager Lerato Mpholo was arrested in July 2026 and released on R25,000 bail. On 3 September 2026 the task team arrested the company's director, Mpho Edward Malema, at a Pretoria shopping mall on charges of fraud, corruption and theft. Police traced eight of the missing vehicles to other municipalities in KwaZulu-Natal and Limpopo.
Malema appeared in the Vanderbijlpark Magistrates' Court on 7 September 2026; the state opposed bail, and municipal records produced at the bail hearing on 15 September showed the company had received more than R34 million across multiple dealings with Emfuleni. The charges are untested and the accused are presumed innocent. Rantsofu joins Babita Deokaran and Mpho Mafole among public servants killed after reporting procurement fraud.