By Raymond Joseph and Elmon Tshikhudo (GroundUp)
A half-built luxury mansion at Nandoni Dam seems to be carrying a curse.
Whoever owns it, battles to escape controversy and becomes media shy.
And whether the house will ever be completed and become a happy family home remains to be seen.
To reach the house, one must traverse a narrow, potholed winding road near Mulenzhe village. The road appears to be only occasionally used and leads to a little-developed area on the bank of the Nandoni Dam.
Several very big houses on large properties along a bushy street show few signs of life and the area is quiet, with no people on the street.
About a kilometre from the main taxi route, hidden from view behind a high wall, is the huge, unfinished, spacious mansion, known locally as the "White House of Mulenzhe".
It was built by the scandal-ridden, former board chairperson of the National Lotteries Commission, Alfred Nevhutanda, using lottery funds.
Besides a fresh coat of paint and the absence of building rubble, not much more appears to have been done to make the unfinished house habitable since August 2022, when GroundUp first visited the area.
Although the house is almost 90% complete, there has clearly been little or no activity there for quite some time. The grounds are unkempt, with overgrown weeds along the unpaved driveway.
In 2022, Joseph Sibanda, the caretaker at an adjacent property, told us, "I have been working here for over two years, but I do not know the owner of the house. One day, while passing by, I was shown a man who was very light in complexion. I was later told he was a very rich man who controlled the lotto. That was the first and last I heard or saw of him."
A foundation of dodgy money
When Alfred Nevhutanda started to build his mansion next to the Nandoni Dam, he didn't use his own money. Instead, he used money earmarked for lottery projects.
This is what the Special Investigation Unit (SIU) uncovered in its investigation into the myriad dodgy grants allocated during Nevhutanda's reign.
In 2023, the Asset Forfeiture Unit managed to obtain preservation orders on some of Nevhutanda's assets, including a R6.3 million Rolls-Royce Phantom. The Pretoria High Court issued a preservation order after hearing that R4.6 million of the car's purchase price had been siphoned from dodgy lottery grants.
But the preservation order was lifted a few months later. This was because the NPA did not believe it would succeed if it pursued the forfeiture of the vehicle which, it said, had since been bought by an "innocent" third party.
The Rolls-Royce was not the only asset that Nevhutanda purchased using lottery funds.
He also used money meant to benefit needy people to purchase his lavish R27 million mansion in Pretoria, and a R1 million unit inside an office park in Polokwane.
A R3.3 million property ostensibly bought for the church he heads, the Higher Grace Christ Redeemer, was also funded with lottery money. The offer to purchase was signed in Nevhutanda's name and not his church, the SIU told Parliament during a report back on its investigation.
But, as was the case with the Rolls-Royce, the SIU decided not to go after the Nandoni mansion and seek a preservation order to freeze and dispose of it.
In the case of the Rolls Royce, a decision was taken not to pursue the matter. At the time, the NPA said it was uncertain whether an application for a preservation order would succeed as the luxury car was sold to an "innocent" person who was unaware of how it was originally paid for.
A source with direct knowledge of the investigation into the Nandoni Dam house confirmed that lottery money was used to purchase it.
"The house was sold in 2021 to an innocent party, to someone called T. Muavha," the source said.
A new controversial owner
The house is now owned by controversial businessman Collen Mashawana. Mashawana and his foundation were implicated in a scandal involving the Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP) funding in which many workers were allegedly either short-paid or did not receive their salaries at all.
The Collen Mashawana Foundation was removed from the Independent Development Trust-funded job-creation programme following a series of exposés by Daily Maverick.
When GroundUp visited the area recently, several people said they had been put to work by Mashawana at Nevhutanda's former mansion. They said they had cleaned and painted the house and also cleared the building site.
"I heard it was bought by businessman Collen Mashawana, but I've never seen or met him," said one of the people staying in the area, who asked not to be identified.
"There was activity here when the house was being painted, and young people were tending the grounds — that was last year," he said.
Nkhensani Baloyi, who worked under Mashawana's EPWP-funded project, told GroundUp: "We have worked here at the house and the adjacent Villa Dante hotel, which is also owned by Mashawana. We worked here, moving bricks and cleaning the spacious house, which has many rooms. I have since left his employment as a result of non-payment of our salaries."
Neither Nevhutanda nor Mashawana responded to questions sent to them via email and WhatsApp.
(Adapted from an article first published by GroundUp.)