Faced attempts on his life after exposing municipal corruption

Mbuso Ngcobo was the executive director of a unit that investigates fraud and corruption at the eThekwini metropolitan municipality, which covers the city of Durban and surrounding towns.

In 2018 his unit launched an investigation into the former ANC mayor of Durban, Zandile Gumede, and a group of senior officials. Ngcobo became the chief whistleblower in what turned into one of South Africa’s biggest high-profile corruption cases.

Gumede is accused of being the kingpin in a criminal enterprise alleged to have looted R320 million (17 million USD) from the city coffers. Among her co-accused are four ANC councillors and four senior officials, including the municipal manager and his wife.

After Ngcobo deposed the founding affidavit and became the prosecution’s chief witness, he repeatedly received death threats, which he reported to the municipality’s head of security. A risk assessment by the State Security Agency determined that he should be provided with personal protection.

It wasn’t long before his protectors saved Ngcobo’s life. In December 2018 he was woken at 2am by the sound of gunshots. Three gunmen had invaded his home, while another three were engaged in a gunfight outside with his bodyguards. The men fled shortly after the shooting began, and no one was injured. Ngcobo suspects the attack was related to the cases he was working on.

Two years later Ngcobo was visiting a relative at his parents’ home north of Durban when he was attacked again. This time two armed men burst into the house and placed their guns against his temples. “One of the men asked me: when are you going to stop doing this job?” he says. The men kicked and punched him, demanding that he hand over his investigation reports, without specifying which they were looking for.

When Ngcobo told the intruders he did not take his reports home, they made off with his laptop and mobile phones. He reported both cases to the police but the feedback he received from the investigating officers is that they have made no progress in tracking down the culprits.

The corruption trial of Gumede and her co-accused began in March 2023, with Ngcobo called as the first witness. Shortly after he testified, his car’s navigation system mysteriously malfunctioned, causing him to crash. He believes the incident and its timing was suspicious.

A senior official also provided him with a 7-page anonymous letter he had received. It outlined machinations to get rid of Ngcobo, who was seen as “a difficult man who is not controllable regarding investigations being conducted by his team” and replace him with someone more pliant.

In June 2023, two weeks before Ngcobo was set to resume his testimony after an adjournment, the threats against him intensified. He says three city councillors – one from the opposition and two from the ANC – met him to warn “you are going to be murdered on this or that date”.

Given the number of threats and the attacks he had survived in the past, he decided to quit. He said his family begged him to leave his job “and rather starve than die”, he told the Daily News. “My brother literally wept, begging me to leave this work because the family did not want to lose me.”

Although it meant leaving a well-paid job without any employment lined up, Ngcobo believes he made the right decision. “Even now, I’m still unemployed. But I’ve decided my life is more important.”

Despite his traumatic ordeals, he believes he did the right thing by testifying in the high-profile trial. “For me, corruption is a sickness. It robs everyone, especially the poorest of the poor. I did my job and made my contribution, even if I risked my life.”

After Ngcobo quit, the trial against Gumede and her co-accused was adjourned again when shots were fired through the bedroom window of another city official days before she was due to give evidence.

Trial proceedings resumed in February 2024, with the media barred from naming witnesses, and were still underway at the time of writing.

In the meantime, the prosecuting authority’s Asset Forfeiture Unit has reportedly obtained seizure orders linked to the case for a luxury Jaguar SUV and two mansions in an exclusive coastal estate.

Mbuso Ngcobo shares the Blueprint Africa Whistleblowing Prize for 2024.