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Durban – Slain former ANC Youth League secretary general Sindiso Magaqa knew he was on a hit list of Umzimkhulu Municipality officials, who were to be assassinated for fighting corruption, the Moerane Commission heard on Wednesday.
Ward 16 councillor and executive committee member in the municipality Jabulile Msiya – who was with Magaqa when he was shot – told the commission that, prior to the shooting, Magaqa had warned her to get a bodyguard because her name was on the hit list.
"Magaqa said his intelligence had told him he was third on the hit list and I was number five," she said.
Msiya said she believes Magaqa was killed because he and she had proposed a forensic investigation into an unfinished hall in her ward.
"We discovered that there was money used to buy material for the hall, but when we checked at the hall, the material was never bought.
"The matter went to council and the council took a decision not to conduct the forensic investigation because they were satisfied with the progress report they had received," she said.
Msiya said, before the murder of Khaya Thobela in April, Thobela had refused to sign a report about the same hall.
'Killed for political reasons'
Thobela was the ANC's Harry Gwala region's deputy secretary and Umzimkhulu municipality speaker.
The report was to be presented to the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta).
About two weeks later, Thobela was shot dead.
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"I believe Thobela was killed for political reasons, even though he was not in my faction. He was killed because he sometimes disagreed with his faction on certain issues," she said.
In May, Mduduzi Tshibase‚ a teacher and Umzimkhulu councillor, was killed at his home in Umzimkhulu.
"Before Tshibase was killed, he told us that a senior leadership official from the Harry Gwala District had shockingly followed him while driving in Harding, (a small town near Umzimkhulu)," she said.
She said Tshibase had been nervous as he thought that the official was following him with the intention of pointing him out to a hitman.
"In less than two weeks after he was followed, he was shot dead. After his funeral, Magaqa warned me to get bodyguards. He then privately organised himself a bodyguard," she said.
'Magaqa warned us there were men approaching with guns'
Msiya said she and councillor Nonsikelelo Mafa were in Magaqa's car on the day they were shot in Ibisi.
"Magaqa had asked his bodyguard to accompany a hungry member of the ANCYL to get fried chips in a nearby fast food outlet. While we were seated in the car, Magaqa warned us there were men approaching with guns, ready to shoot at us," she said.
They were shot on July 13 and Magaqa succumbed to his injuries in September.
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She said three people on the hit list had been killed, so far, and that the person who was number four on the list was still alive. She did not reveal his name.
Msiya said her faction, which Magaqa was part of, was about clean governance and anti-corruption, "but is a minority in the council".
She said that, since the shooting, the council had not provided them with bodyguards.
"I think we have not been provided with security because we are part of a faction," she said.
Msiya said that, two weeks after Thobela's murder, the council leadership was provided with bodyguards.
She alleged that those bodyguards were also associated with the local taxi industry.
Two other ANC officials have been shot dead in Umzimkhulu this year.
The hearings will continue on Thursday.
