R3.84 million paid to ghost military veterans

The Gauteng Provincial Government has paid out nearly R4 million to companies that it says are owned by military veterans.

However, several of these companies are either not registered under the names of the military veterans they claim or are not registered at all.

These red flags raise the question of whether certain companies are exploiting the province’s initiative to support military veteran-owned businesses or if the Gauteng Provincial Government is to blame.

The information first arose when Democratic Alliance (DA) Member of the Provincial Legislature (MPL) Kingsol Chabalala questioned the value of contracts awarded to companies owned by military veterans over the past three financial years.

Gauteng Member of the Executive Committee (MEC) Matome Chiloane said that the department had not awarded contracts to companies owned by military veterans for the past five years.

However, he then went on to list more than twenty companies that have rendered services for the department since the beginning of the 2023/24 financial year.

These services, which include library security, “event service wreath laying,” “Mzansi online tablets,” and a “gifts and awards language service,”  have cost the department nearly R8.5 million over the past two years.

Upon closer inspection, the ID numbers provided for the military veterans who are the directors of these companies showed that many were born in the early 1990s.

For instance, in the 2024/25 financial year, the department paid R167,500 to Intellectdotcom for “logistics for Phetogo,” which is directed by a 1995-born military veteran. 

The same company was paid R147,700 the year before for “Gifts and Awards Language Service.”

The department also paid for services from a company called Koka Business Enterprise for R599,200.

While this may create doubt as to whether someone born then can be a military veteran, the Military Veteran Act states that any South African citizen who:

• Rendered military service to any of the military organisations, statutory and non-statutory, which were involved in all sides of South Africa’s Liberation War from 1960 to 1994;
• Served in the Union Defence Force before 1961; or
• Became a member of the South African National Defence Force after 1994, completed their military training, and no longer performs military service is considered a military veteran.

This means that while many of the directors of these companies may have been born in the 1990s, there is a chance that they are military veterans.

Missing military veterans

Searching for these companies on the Department of Trade, Industry, and Competition’s Companies and Intellectual Property Commission database raised several red flags.

Only four of the eight companies belonging to military veterans born in the 1990s were registered under the names provided by the department.

These were L BY 3 Trading, Matabatseme Enterprise, Re Dlala Game Trading, and Fikizulu Consulting, to which the department paid out over R1.5 million for their services in the 2024/25 financial year. 

The other companies supposedly belonging to military veterans were not registered under the names and ID numbers provided by the department.

This was true for Intellectdotcom, Koka Business Enterprise, and Khumo Ya Khutso Security and Trading.

In the case of Khumo Ya Khutso Security and Trading, the person listed as the director by the CIPC was also the director of another company called Maloma Consulting Services.

When looking up the director of this company, which was registered in February 2025, the director listed on the CIPC database matched the information provided by the department.

They were also listed as the director of Lesedi and Leano Services. This company had rendered services for the department twice, bringing the total amount paid to companies owned by this individual to over R1.4 million.

The final of the eight companies, Lem and Lea Enterprise, was not listed on the CIPC at all. This was also the case for four other companies listed by the department as the recipients of money for services rendered.

The money paid to these companies over the 2023/24 and 2024/25 financial years amounted to nearly R2.9 million.

This brings the total amount paid out to businesses that are either not registered on the CIPC database or not registered under the ID numbers of the military veterans produced by the department to R3.84 million.

Newsday has attempted to contact MEC Chiloane’s department, but did not receive a response by publication.