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Ace Magashule’s former personal assistant Moroadi Cholota. (Screengrab/City Press)
- Ace Magashule's former PA, Moroadi Cholota, is being extradited from the US to South Africa on Thursday.
- Cholota, initially a key witness in a R255-million asbestos tender corruption case, was charged after refusing to cooperate with the State and is now an accused.
- The State alleges that high-ranking officials, including Magashule, received kickbacks from the asbestos removal funds, with only R21 million worth of work completed out of the intended R255 million.
Former Free State premier Ace Magashule's ex-PA is expected to land in Johannesburg on Thursday afternoon after she was extradited from the United States.
News24 has established that Moroadi Cholota is being extradited and escorted on a plane by officers from SAPS and Interpol.
Cholota is expected to land after 17:00 at OR Tambo International Airport.
She was considered a pivotal witness for the State in a corrupt R255-million asbestos tender scheme, but she was charged after she declined to cooperate. She is now an accused.
The scheme allegedly saw multiple high-ranking Free State government officials receive kickbacks from money meant to fund the removal of harmful asbestos from the homes of the province's poorest residents.
However, instead of the affected houses being safely rid of asbestos at a reasonable price, the State says businessman Edwin Sodi and his 15 co-accused embarked on a "rent-seeking" scheme that ultimately resulted in only R21 million worth of the work being done.
According to court papers filed by Free State Director of Public Prosecutions Navilla Somaru, up until the State met with Cholota in the US in November 2021, the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) "was of the view that Cholota was a State witness, which was in keeping with the impression she created".
But when detectives interviewed Cholota in the US, "she made an about-turn and failed to cooperate with the State", Somaru said.
It was then that the NPA decided to charge her as the 17th accused in the asbestos tender corruption case and apply for her extradition.
However, Cholota argued that the charges against her were politically motivated.
Cholota's legal team argued that she was charged with multiple counts of fraud, corruption and money laundering "primarily due to her refusal in questioning as a State witness, to attribute specific actions to Mr Ace Magashule, and not because she was implicated or had committed those crimes".
News24 reported in June that Maryland District Court Magistrate Judge Erin Aslan ordered Cholota to remain behind bars while US Secretary of State Antony Blinken decided whether to authorise her extradition.
Aslan found that "[t]he evidence before this court is sufficient to justify Ms Cholota's commitment for trial had the offences with which she is charged been committed in the United States".
The State's case is that Magashule's alleged take for these continued payments came in the form of school tuition for his former classmate and former acting Judge Refiloe Mokoena's daughter, electronic tablets, and R250 000 for the travel expenses of an ANC delegation to Cuba.
Those alleged gratifications were given through payments made by Sodi's subsequently murdered business associate, Ignatius Mpambani - following email requests made by Cholota.
Magashule denied that the Free State government funded his son's studies in the US.
