The Municipal Manager of the Maluti-a-Phofung (MAP) local municipality has distanced himself from a multi-million contract that was first flagged by the Office of the Auditor-General (AG) and later investigated by the Hawks.

Advocate Matthews Mofokeng says the tender was not issued under his watch as it was awarded before he took office.

He has since referred all questions about the ongoing probe to the Hawks.

“On the issue of Hawks investigation on Mavro matter,it is a tender that was awarded long before I became the MM at MAP and I would prefer you make inquiries directly to the Hawks as they are the ones dealing with the matter,” Mofokeng said, but did not say whether the municipality was cooperating or not.

The investigation by the Hawks came to light in March this year after the elite crime fighting unit wrote to the municipality and requested several documents regarding the tender.

The request was made after the tender called Mavro projects was questioned by the AG. The AG picked up that the company was awarded the tender even though it was never checked whether it was tax compliant and its CSD status was in order.

Between August 2024 and January 2025, the company had already pocketed R11, 3 million from the municipality for providing electrical equipment and personal protective gear to the entity.

• READ: Maluti-A-Phofung Municipality taken to task over R12 Million Duplicate Payment to Security Company

Meanwhile, Mofokeng has opened up to the African Times about issues around the operations of MAP Water and claims that employees sometimes are not paid their salaries. He claimed that the reason why January salaries were not paid on time was because the water entity failed to provide an audit list of employees to be paid.

That was after the payment of salaries was taken over by the municipality to prevent its looting and collapsing of the entity.