Gangster State

time having to advertise a fresh tender. The bid process that led to
Blackhead’s appointment was questionable from the start. Why, for
example, did the national department administer a tender process for
service providers to do work for the provincial department? The latter
has its own procurement unit to appoint contractors through its own
supply-chain management processes.
Blackhead ended up raking in hundreds of millions of rands thanks to
contracts from the Gauteng housing department, which included those
it had received as part of the panel of PRTs, as well as work it had
secured at an earlier stage. According to an article in Sunday World in
2015 , Blackhead won contracts worth nearly R 700 million to build
low-cost houses all over Gauteng. Thanks to these deals, Sodi became
a very wealthy man, and he certainly knew how to enjoy his riches.
The Sunday World article listed a Rolls-Royce Wraith, a Lamborghini,
a Ferrari, a McLaren, a BMW X 6 and an Aston Martin as being among
the tenderpreneur’s four-wheeled indulgences.^9
Several sources familiar with Sodi told me that his company’s
lucrative involvement with the Gauteng housing department was a
result of his close relationship with Nomvula Mokonyane, who served
as premier of Gauteng from 2009 until 2014 , when she became
national minister for water and sanitation. Mokonyane’s stint in this
department, which lasted until January 2018 , has been the subject of
countless news reports about dodgy deals involving contractors linked
to her.
Sodi apparently continued to benefit from his alleged relationship with
Mokonyane after she became minister. In 2016 , City Press reported on
a R 500 -million contract that Blackhead Consulting secured from the
Department of Water and Sanitation for work on a dam near Tzaneen