Social Development Minister Sisisi Tolashe faces additional charges over two vehicles allegedly donated to the ANCWL that ended up with her family, as investigations by the Hawks widen.
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- Social Development Minister Sisisi Tolashe faces criminal charges around two vehicles she claimed were donated to the ANC’s Women’s League.
- ActionSA and the DA have laid charges and complaints against the minister, including at the Public Protector, Parliament and the police, over claims she kept the cars and sold one.
- The DA will lay more charges against the embattled minister on Thursday.
On Thursday, additional charges will be laid against Social Development Minister Sisisi Tolashe in connection with the escalating scandal over two cars donated to the African National Congress Women’s League (ANCWL), which ended up in her family’s possession, with one later sold. Tolashe is the ANCWL president. The DA is bringing the charges about two weeks after ActionSA did the same.
The charges stem from a Daily Maverick report detailing a 2024 car donation by a Chinese delegation to the ANCWL, which ultimately ended up with Tolashe’s children. In response to a series of parliamentary questions from ActionSA’s Dereleen James, Tolashe said she was not required to declare the vehicles to Parliament, as they had been donated to the league.
However, the ANCWL had no record of the cars. On that basis, ActionSA laid criminal charges against Tolashe, followed by complaints to the Public Protector and Parliament’s ethics committee.
The DA also sent complaints to the Public Protector and the Presidency about Tolashe, including an alleged contract extension for a senior official in her department that she did not have permission to grant.
The DA’s spokesperson on social development, Nazley Sharif, told News24:
It’s not just one scandal; it’s not just one big scandal; it’s multiple big scandals.
She said this pointed to maladministration and a lack of proper governance on Tolashe’s part, and thus Sharif questioned whether she was fit to be minister.
Sharif asked whether it made sense for Tolashe to keep the car so that it could not be seized. At the weekend, the Sunday Times reported that Tolashe had made a submission to the ANC’s integrity commission, in which she claimed that if the cars had been registered to the ANCWL, it could be at risk should its assets be attached in a court case.
“Who on your team said this was a good idea? Because now you’re implicating yourself in more of a mess,” said Sharif.
READ | ‘The minister has a lot to answer’ – ActionSA on corruption charges against Sisisi Tolashe
“It’s just too much,” she added.
Hawks now investigating
On Wednesday, some two weeks after the initial criminal complaint, James told News24 the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (Hawks) was looking into the issue.
“We are working with the Hawks to broaden the scope of the corruption probe to include additional vehicles that were improperly gifted and never declared by other ministers,” she said.
James added:
We are warning the president that, given the weight of the information at our disposal and the inevitable outcome of the criminal case unfolding, he would be well advised to fire his lying comrade, namely Minister Tolashe, who had the nerve to lie to Parliament to conceal her undeclared gifts.
James said President Cyril Ramaphosa must act against Tolashe “before she is arrested and hauled before the courts”.
On Monday, News24 reported ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula said the minister could be dropped if it were found that she violated the ethics act governing Cabinet Ministers. Mbalula, however, told journalists he awaited a report from Tolashe and the ANCWL on the status of the vehicles.
Minister Maropene Ramokgopa, responsible for Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation, has also been implicated in the unfolding scandal, with claims that she also received three cars. But she denied the allegations to the Sunday Times, claiming that infighting within the Department of Social Development had brought her name into the dispute.
