A 25-YEAR-old contract killer has accused an influential ANC leader in Mpumalanga of offering him R100000 and a cushy government job if he poisoned government officials who were blocking access to tenders linked to the 2010 soccer World Cup.
The ANC boss, whose name is known to the Sunday Times, was fingered by more than a dozen other sources interviewed during a three-week investigation into the killings of at least a dozen senior politicians in Mpumalanga starting in 1998.
The would-be assassin said he had been given the poison and had been ready to do the job, but had pulled out after a disagreement with his "client" over an advance fee.
Though his three intended victims are still alive, six officials were murdered or died in suspicious circumstances in Mpumalanga last year alone and another has been killed this year. Local party leaders and officials who spoke to the Sunday Times mentioned a "hit list" of other proposed victims and said they were living in fear.
The Sunday Times has been given the full name of a Mozambican gangster known as "Josh" and told that he was responsible for the murder in January 2009 of Mbombela (Nelspruit) council speaker Jimmy Mohlala.
"Josh" agreed to speak to our reporters in Mozambique, but then changed his mind.
ANC national spokesman Jackson Mthembu - the former speaker of the Mpumalanga legislature - said the ruling party was aware of the alleged hit list and had sent a task team to investigate those responsible for the killings of its members in the province.
The Sunday Times investigation took reporters to sources in Gauteng, Mpumalanga and Mozambique. Those interviewed included senior ANC members, municipal officials and National Intelligence Agency sources, as well as the province's former ANC Youth League leader, James Nkambule, and Mpu-malanga Democratic Alliance leader Anthony Benadie....
