Suspended Ekurhuleni chief operations officer Lesiba Mojapelo is expected to appear before a municipal disciplinary hearing on Monday.

It is alleged that Mojapelo didn't follow supply chain policies when awarding a R4-million tender to TS Records, then linked to current African National Congress (ANC) Ekurhuleni regional secretary Thembinkosi "TK" Nciza, to market the City's 2010 FIFA World Cup activities.

At the time, Mojapelo was the general manager of the City's 2010 legacy projects. According to, Business Day Mojapelo claimed Ekurhuleni Mayor Mzwandile Masina lied to the council earlier this year, leading to his suspension.

Mojapelo alleged that Masina lied about having an updated Special Investigating Unit report on the awarding of the tender before he was suspended. Law unto himself Mojapelo further accused Masina of being a law unto himself and said working with him had become untenable.

Masina's office denied Mojapelo's claims in the Business Day report. The municipality received the original SIU report in October 2018 and it was tabled in council in February 2019. In February, the African Independent Congress (AIC), the ANC's coalition partner in Ekurhuleni, called for Mojapelo to go, but the ANC stood by him at the time, News24 reported. Mojapelo is no stranger to controversy.

In May this year, News24 reported that he denied any wrongdoing in the handling of the City's Lungile Mtshali Community Development Project and instead suggested that some of his colleagues were targeting him after a report noted irregularities in the project.

The project was aimed at giving each of the 112 wards in the municipality R1-million for the development of parks. Among some of the adverse findings in the preliminary review report by Meodi Chartered Accountants, was that out of the 13 parks for which the City had been invoiced for work done, four were non-existent.

The City was billed R1 095 306.06 for the four sites. The report also found that work at eight out of the 13 sites "was of either poor quality and standard or was not performed as claimed on the invoices". This work amounted to R3 776 169.69.