22nd April,2024
Maseru Town Clerk, Molete Selete, appeared before Magistrate Makopano Rants’o today. He was charged for paying M14 million between 2021 to 2023 to a Malaysian joint venture which had been engaged by Maseru City Council (MCC) to construct the Mpilo Boulevard intersection road in Maseru.
Mr Selete, stands accused alongside MCC Engineer, Matsoso Tikoe, the SCIGM-SMGC joint venture and its Project manager, Kenneth Leong, a Malaysian national.
It is alleged that the trio, Selete,Tikoe and Molefe Nthabane who is to be joined later and will be appearing at next court appearance, were the officials of MCC, when they ”illegal authorized” advance payment of M14 million to SCIGM-SMGC joint venture. They authorized the payment, aware that the SCIGM-SMGC joint venture had not submitted a 20 percent guarantee of the total contract value of about M75 million as required. The M14 million was paid despite the joint venture’s failure to submit an advance payment guarantee was illegal and was done fraudulently.
MCC terminated their contract with the SCIGM-SMGC joint venture on 30 January 2024 before the project was completed, meaning it lost the M14 million paid to the contractor without the authentic guarantee. They thereby committed an offence of fraud and or theft, corruption and money laundering.
All the accused persons before court were granted a bail deposit of M5000.00 each and a surety of immovable property amounting to M200,000.00 while accused four (SCIGM-SMGC joint venture) and five (Leong) paid M10,000.00 deposit and a movable property amounting to M400,000.00 as surety. The accused was remanded to 15 May 2024 for their next court appearance.
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