By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
Disgraced former Tshwane mayor Murunwa Makwarela is to appear before the Pretoria specialised commercial crimes court on a charge of fraud.
Makwarela handed himself over to the Brooklyn police station on Monday morning.
The National Prosecuting Authority’s (NPA)Lumka Mahanjane confirmed that Makwarela was expected to appear in the Specialised Commercial Crimes Court in Pretoria on Monday.
In March, Cope councillor was forced to call it quits, amid a scandal about his controversial insolvency rehabilitation certificate.
In dramatic scenes, Makwarela who is Cope’s sole councillor in Tshwane, was removed as mayor through a disqualification as a councillor by city manager Johann Mettler after it surfaced that in 2016 the high court in Pretoria declared him insolvent.
Days later, Makwarela resurfaced as Tshwane mayor, after he submitted a certificate of solvency rehabilitation to Mettler in keeping with a promise the mayor had made.
The declaration of his insolvency status by a court of law meant Makwarela was ineligible to hold a public office as a councillor in terms of Section 158(1) of the Constitution.
He was under severe pressure to produce an evidence certificate of solvency rehabilitation to demonstrate he was not an unrehabilitated insolvent and was eligible to occupy the public office as Tshwane’s number one citizen.
However, Mettler indicated that he asked the City of Tshwane’s legal services to investigate Makwarela’s solvency rehabilitation certificate after its authenticity came into question.
Tshwane multiparty coalition partners the DA, ActionSA, FF+, ACDP, and the IFP, cast doubt on the validity of the certificate and had vowed to take legal steps to verify its legal standing.
Makwarela was dealt a blow when chief registrar of the high court in Pretoria, Tumelo Refilwe Ledwaba, confirmed that “the document purporting to be an order issued by this Court was never issued in our courts. I also confirm that no rehabilitation order has ever been issued regarding the parties named in the said documents”.
Ledwaba said he was referring the matter to the Hawks for investigations.
Makwarela immediately resigned as mayor and left the public eye, claiming that two of his relatives passed away that same weekend.